Catholic Worker altruism isn't deductible

The Los Angeles Catholic Worker serves 3,000 meals a week, most during three lunches that begin at 9:30 in the morning, members say. Volunteers get busy shortly after dawn in the cinderblock kitchen, preparing huge quantities of rice and beans, often with meat, along with salad and buttered bread. Much of the food is donated. Otherwise, the members buy $500 to $600 worth of groceries a week, Morris said. If there is extra money, she said, they purchase something special to enliven the fare, such as grated cheese or sour cream.

"I love these people," said Gregory Gibson, 47, a tall man in dreadlocks who regularly eats at the kitchen. He said he has been living on skid row for 13 years, landing there after a run of "personal problems."

"They do it out of the kindness of their heart," Gibson said of the Catholic Worker. "Isn't that amazing?"

He was waiting for a friend at the dental clinic, which sees patients on Fridays. Rolling Hills Estates dentist Rich Meehan has been volunteering there for 16 years.

"I don't have any financial worries, so why not do something?" said Meehan, 72, whose workspace in the clinic is set off by a rickety 5-foot partition. The dental chair is a relic.

"This is pretty basic," Meehan said with a laugh. "We don't do crowns."

Like the homeless, the Catholic Worker members depend on the county for healthcare that the clinics cannot handle, Morris said. They also eat the food served at the kitchen and wear donated clothes.

Their largest source of revenue is the $20,000 to $22,000 from an annual anti-hunger walk by students at three Catholic high schools, Morris said. Before Sheen's $10,000, the last windfall was a $50,000 bequest from Los Angeles philanthropist Joan Palevsky, who died a year ago.

The members had barely heard of Palevsky. "We got a letter, it said 'sign here,' and a check came," Morris recalled.

She said the only money-related run-ins with authorities involved bank account interest and unpaid telephone tax. The group does not believe in usury, so it gave away the interest earnings without paying taxes on them. It ignored the phone levy because the proceeds helped fund the military, Morris said.

The results were a letter and a visit from the IRS, but the Catholic Worker held firm and the government dropped the matters, she added.

Just in case there is another knock on the door, the Catholic Worker has kept a record of every donation since the 1970s, in three-ring binders. Its checkbook is stored in a box.

"We call that box 'the office,' " Morris said.

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paul.pringle@latimes.com