NewsLab

Six CSS volunteers spent community day at the Bike Cave Collective, helping tear apart old bicycles and build new ones. The four students and two campus ministry staff worked side-by-side with the community members straightening up the Bike Cave before winter sets in.

The Bike Cave Collective is located in the basement of the Dorothy Day House and serves as a free-of-charge cooperative for bike repair and building. The men and women who work in the bike cave teach others to build and repair bikes themselves.

Most often help is given to those who cannot afford other forms of transportation, but the door is open to anyone who stops by, said Alex Strachota, who has lived at the Dorothy Day House as an intern for almost two years.

Strachota said that the Bike Cave helps to promote an alternative economy. "We take labor of all forms in exchange for bikes, parts, and maintenance," Strachota said. "Some people cook, some clean, some volunteer back time in the Cave or the house."

The Bike Cave also appeals to those who do not desire to support the big business that dominate the United States capitalistic society, said Gregory Schultz, who was originally an intern at Loaves and Fishes in the summer of 2006. He quit his job and came back in June 2007. Schultz has been living there since.

"Thirteen of the 14 biggest companies in the world are oil companies," Schultz said. "We do not need to let them rule our lives if we do not become dependent on what they provide. By creating an alternative, such as biking, we do not need to support such destructive elements of capitalism."

The Bike Cave is only one element of the Loaves and Fishes community. In addition to housing interns, the three shelter the poor, marginalized, and those who need a home.

Among the houses there are places for men, women, and families. The houses provide meals, beds, clothes, showers, and all the affordable comforts of home to their guests. There is no limit on how long or little they can stay as long as they give back to the community.

The Loaves and Fishes community is one that highlights a reasonable democracy, "a democracy that works." The Loaves and Fishes Catholic Worker Community consists of three "hospitality houses" named: Olive Branch, Dorothy Day House, and Hannah House. "Democracy is supposed to be about having a voice, but when the poles come out 51 percent to 49 percent, where is the voice for the minority? That is not what we're trying to do here," Strachota said. "Everything is either unanimous or we compromise."

He said that at Loaves and Fishes all the decisions are made with an equal say from all who inhabit the house. If one person disagrees with an idea, then the idea is discarded.

Strachota said, "We are a network of friends and family, I guess. No, family, that is the right word to describe us."

Each Catholic Worker house revolves around a life perspective known as personalism, which is defined as a psychological approach stressing individual personality as the central concern of psychology.

The Catholic Worker Movement began in the midst of the Great Depression when Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day met, one frustrated with capitalism and the other with communism.

They decided to form an alternative lifestyle that centers, as Dorothy Day said, on how to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ."

Today, there are over 185 Catholic Worker communities in the United Sates according to the Catholic Worker Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Dorothy Day said, "It is easier to have faith that God will support each House of Hospitality and Farming Commune and supply our needs in the way of food and money to pay bills, than it is to keep a strong, hearty, living faith in each individual around us, to see Christ in him," in reference to personalism.

In the Loaves and Fishes' spring 2009 newsletter their mission statement says, "We dream of and work to build the kingdom of Goda world free of hunger, war, racism, homelessness and other such crimes."

The Loaves and Fishes community will continues to strive towards these idealistic goals, all the while reaching out to the Duluth community for assistance.