Our Lady of the Road to go nonprofit

The South Bend Catholic Worker today announced that they’re spinning off their drop-in center, Our Lady of the Road, as a nonprofit.

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Mike Baxter announces the plans just before the end of mass at OLR.

They’re actively seeking donations to help them buy the drop-in center outright. You can’t make a tax-deductable donations at the moment, but you will soon be able to. Please contact peterclaverhouse@gmail.com for details.

OLR is open Friday and Saturday mornings, and is at 744 South Main Street in South Bend, Indiana. If you’d care to make a small donation right away, please bring by any of the following items:

  • Coffee
  • T-shirts
  • Small canisters of shaving cream
  • Dish soap
  • Laundry soap
  • Socks
  • Trash bags (13 gal and 30 gal)

Grab yourself a cup of coffee while you’re there and hang out awhile.

2 thoughts on “Our Lady of the Road to go nonprofit”

  1. For those of us not intimately involved in the hospitality non-business, what are the advantages and disadvantages of non-profit status? Or, why are most Catholic Worker houses not non-profit organizations?

  2. There are a lot of different reasons. I’d say 2 biggies are:

    * Hostility towards “the state.”

    * The desire to “model” radical gospel living for others. One message the Catholic Worker Movement sends is that you don’t have to be in some special situation (monastery, non-profit corporation) to respond to the people around you with Christ-like love and mercy.

    In this case, where they’re making the center, but not their community, a non-profit, I don’t think #2 applies. It’s one thing to say, “Anyone can open their home to the homeless.” But I don’t think anyone is trying to say, “Anyone can buy a huge warehouse and turn it into a laundromat/eatery.” (Some Catholic Workers would object to a large-scale project like this for just that reason.)

    Adam, I’ll try to research this further and give you a more comprehensive answer.

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