We’re Cleaning Up CW.org!
For over two decades, CatholicWorker.org has offered free access to Dorothy Day’s writings, a national directory of Catholic Worker communities,…
For over two decades, CatholicWorker.org has offered free access to Dorothy Day’s writings, a national directory of Catholic Worker communities, and other background information on the Catholic Worker Movement. But like any long-standing house of hospitality, it’s due for a little maintenance.
This summer, we’ve launched two major volunteer-driven efforts to renew and improve the site, with the aim of making it more accurate, inviting, and useful to the thousands of people who visit it each month. Here’s a quick overview of what we’re working on:
1. Updating the Dorothy Day Library
The Dorothy Day Library is one of the most frequently visited sections of the site. It contains dozens of Dorothy’s articles, speeches, and reflections, spanning decades of her writing for The Catholic Worker newspaper. Originally transcribed by hand by dozens of volunteers over a period of five years, some of these records include small typos, formatting errors, or omissions.
Our volunteer team is undertaking a meticulous review of each article—comparing the website version against scans of the original newspaper articles—and making corrections where necessary. We’re also improving article summaries, adding consistent content tags to aid navigation, and preparing corrected files for upload.
Ultimately, this project is about honoring Dorothy’s legacy by ensuring her words are preserved and presented as accurately as possible, and continuing to disseminate her vision to a new generation.
2. Refreshing the Catholic Worker Community Directory
Thousands of people—prospective volunteers, donors, and seekers—use CatholicWorker.org’s community directory to find and connect with Catholic Worker communities around the world. But the directory is only as helpful as it is accurate.
In this project, volunteers are reaching out to every community listed in the directory to verify their contact information, confirm the services and activities they engage in, and invite them to share a photo or updated description. We’re also working to identify communities that are no longer active, and to add ones that may have been overlooked. Our goal is to make the directory a more reliable, searchable, and up-to-date tool for connection and collaboration.
What We Hope to Achieve
Together, these projects aim to:
- Preserve the intellectual and spiritual legacy of Dorothy Day by ensuring her writings are accurate and easy to access.
- Strengthen connections among Catholic Worker communities by providing up-to-date and consistent directory information.
- Welcome new people to the movement by making the site more inviting, navigable, and trustworthy.
- Encourage collaboration and visibility by showcasing the diversity and vitality of Catholic Worker communities today.
We’ve set a working goal of completing these updates by the end of the year, and we’re heartened by the response so far—more than a dozen volunteers have already stepped up to join the effort.
If you or someone you know has an eye for detail, a heart for the movement, and a few hours to give, we invite you to sign up and lend a hand. You can do that by completing the form here.
