"We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love."
(Simone Weil)

April 7, 1982 saw a small group of Catholic Worker volunteers make 65 egg salad sandwiches and pack them up in their car for distribution on Soledad Street in Salinas, an area known for abandoned buildings and abandoned lives. April of 2011 marked 29 years of service for the group that became the Franciscan Workers of Junipero Serra. This same organization of Worker Community, Board, volunteers, and donors created Dorothy's Place Hospitality Center, initiated numerous outreach projects such as Youth Alive and Camp St. Francis, re-envisioned an intentional community of Companions of the Way, created a free health clinic for the poor, suceeded in creating an emergency shelter for street women in Salinas, and created a successful community of formerly broken and abandoned lives now living together in mutual support in House of Peace.

Franciscan Workers of Junipero Serra, a 501(c)3 public benefit corporation, was named intentionally to honor St. Francis, who had a special affinity with the poor, and Father Junípero Serra, the Franciscan friar and missionary that pioneered our Central Coast region of California.  Our mission is to live, love and work in harmony, to serve the marginalized, to create partnerships that are mutually liberating and to pursue social justice with respect and dignity for all, in the spirit of St. Francis and Dorothy Day.

We are now in the midst of a neighborhood revitalization process facilitated by California State University Monterey Bay (the Chinatown Renewal Project). We are confidently walking into a blessed future of great possibilities for all our guests, our neighbors, the City of Salinas, and Monterey County as a whole. Although we are delighted to have served more than 2 million meals in 29 years, we are even more excited to have so many more opportunities to practice the Way of Love everyday! Your participation in the life and projects of the Franciscan Workers has a direct and daily impact upon the lives of many, many people – one person at a time.

Samantha was a bright teenager living with her parents in their car on Soledad Street. She used to come into Dorothy’s Place for breakfast everyday, cradling a cup of hot coffee with cream and sugar in her hands to get warm. One day after breakfast, she walked out onto Soledad Street to discover her parents had left. And they didn’t come back. When Samantha was abandoned at age sixteen by her parents, she had no hope left in her life. She thought that her life story had ended. She ran from her deep inside pain to drugs and then prostitution to pay for drugs. When not in jail, she was a guest of Dorothy's Place, and slowly began to trust again and become part of our family. She finally found the courage to truly live once more. Samantha became drug free, engaged in a healthy, trusting relationship, employed and self-sustaining.

Your interest in and support of Dorothy's Place was profoundly important to Samantha, as it continues to be for countless others. We encourage you to explore our web site . . . consider the many ways in which you might be able to help or join us . . . and ponder the deep themes of Compassion, Justice, Equality, and the Way of Love that animates our lives and keeps us opening our doors and our hearts.

Welcome!