Winona Announces Dan Corcoran House Re-Opening

With great joy and excitement the Winona Catholic Worker is humbled to announce the reopening of Dan Corcoran House to provide hospitality to single women and families.  After over two years of sitting vacant due to a lack of live-in volunteers we have finally secured commitments from enough volunteers to fully run both houses of hospitality.  It's been a long journey of ups and downs, but after going through a stringent discernment process with seven potential volunteers we have invited and received commitments from three new volunteers. Matthew, a teacher from Minneapolis will be joining us in mid August, and James from North Carolina and Molly from Chicago joined us in July. We plan on giving our new volunteers time to settle into life in Winona and our community, and reopening Dan Corcoran house by mid September.

  Our community is growing, and with its growth we will face new challenges inward and outward. The division of resources between two houses has the potential to bring entirely new rigors to daily communal life. We are glad that our community has grown into its most stable point in years, and we're confident in our ability to meet these new challenges.

With more volunteers in the community, we will have a greater ability to focus some of our energies on other Catholic Worker ideals beyond offering hospitality. Resistance work and further community activism will have a greater opportunity to become a regular staple of our community.

  Now more than ever, support from the wider community is essential. We will continue to conserve our resources, (financial and environmental) but our expenses are going to rise as we fully open Dan Corcoran house. If you've contributed to us in the past we would like to thank you and encourage your continued support. Just as important as financial, we would like to thank all those who have helped us around the houses, from those who cook for us monthly, to those who help us keep the lights on and taxes paid, we would not be able to continue our mission without you.

  In our works of hospitality, we are humbled to play a role in bettering countless lives. From those who stay with us for weeks, to those who stop in for dinner are coming for something. Sometimes that something is just a meal or a warm place to sleep, but most often it's for the camaraderie and companionship that we are able to offer with your help. We couldn't continue without your support and prayers.

Source:

http://www.winonacatholicworker.org/2011_08_01_archive.html