Presented by Victoria Machado, PhD for Faculty Day of Scholarship

Started in the 1930s by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of grassroots, activist communities that draw from biblical teachings and the Works of Mercy to serve marginalized populations in their larger quest to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence (Catholic Worker 2023). Drawing from Jesus’ teachings, the Works of Mercy include feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, and burying the dead. Catholic Workers gather together and pair these teachings with their commitment to the notion of Christian personalism (the goodness of God in each person) to pursue their larger calls for justice. Based on this foundation, such work continues today through a network of over 180 independent houses of hospitality that each focus on justice-related projects (Catholic Worker 2023).

The following spotlights one of those houses, the Gainesville Catholic Worker (GCW), located at the time in north central Florida. In the true nature of Catholic Worker teaching, the GCW kept its work small; however, its service-based projects like the Breakfast Brigade, which served homemade bread, local eggs, and fresh fruit to labor pool workers, and Dorothy’s Café, which provided a homemade vegetarian meal to the homeless, underemployed, and those on fixed incomes, spanned well over a decade.

Based on seven years of participant observation, volunteer work, and in-depth interviews (2008-2014), this chapter examines the simplicity of such radical justice work and how intersectional interactions come to the forefront through beautiful and intentional meals shared in the spirit of community rather than charity. Following extensive ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter explores Catholic Worker efforts to put their beliefs into action by combating the systemic oppression of people and the natural world through local food.