Cathy Mitchell has been part of the WordPress world since 2007. What started as a hobby during maternity leave turned into WPBarista in 2008, and years later she’s now leading the team for WordCamp Canada 2026. Her story is familiar to many in the ecosystem: a mix of serendipity, learning-by-doing, and the surprising warmth of an open community.
Cathy’s path into WordPress wasn’t through a formal career track. Early on she learned from generous contributors in support forums and slowly built skills that became a business. More recently, as her children left home and she had time to look for meaningful ways to contribute, she discovered the volunteer-driven side of WordPress events. A colleague invited her to help with WordCamp Canada and she found herself not only doing useful work but being entrusted with responsibility. Within a year she was leading the organizing team.
That ready trust — the willingness to say “yes” and let volunteers step up — is one of the qualities Cathy highlights about WordPress events. Unlike many corporate or institutional settings where you must prove yourself for years before being given meaningful work, WordPress communities often let people contribute right away. Newcomers can help with coffee, badges, or logistics; others find ways to contribute code, design, or outreach. The default attitude is to enable people rather than block them with red tape.
For Cathy, that openness leads to belonging. She and many others find their volunteer work rewarding not only because it helps the project but because it combats loneliness and provides purpose. After the empty-nesting transition, volunteering at local classes, community events, and WordCamps has given her structure, social connection, and the satisfaction of using skills she enjoys. She describes service as an antidote to isolation: working toward a shared goal, practicing useful skills, and feeling part of something larger.
This human side of open source is powerful. Research and public commentary in recent years have linked loneliness to serious health impacts — prompting leaders to call it an epidemic. Cathy and the host both note that technology plays a complicated role: it offers connection but can also facilitate isolation when it replaces in-person experiences. In that context, events and volunteering provide the kind of face-to-face, purposeful interaction that improves wellbeing.
There’s also a corporate angle. Why should companies sponsor or support WordPress events? Historically the answer was simple: WordPress was growing fast, and sponsoring helped firms be part of that rising tide. These days the calculus is more complex. Economic uncertainty, increased competition, and new rules around trademark and sponsorship make budgets tighter and expectations higher. Companies want measurable returns and tougher questions are asked at boardroom level. Still, Cathy argues that sponsoring and participating in open source communities pays indirect dividends: it improves hiring pipelines, helps with vetting talent, strengthens reputation, and supports a healthier ecosystem that benefits everyone who builds on WordPress.
The changing landscape has made organizers think harder about sustainability and strategy. Cathy sees a kind of leveling off rather than a collapse — a normalisation after rapid growth — and believes that attention should turn to long-term health, not short-term hype. Part of that long-term work is bringing younger people into open source.
Cathy is passionate about involving students and early-career contributors. Initiatives like Campus Connect and university credit for contributions are beginning to take hold in some regions. WordCamps can showcase those pathways by inviting universities, offering sessions that earn academic credit, and making events accessible and relevant to students. Getting young people involved isn’t just about creating future maintainers; it’s about offering them a community, skills, and real-world experience that benefits the broader project.
There are practical lessons from Cathy’s experience organizing large conferences. WordCamps look and feel highly polished — venue, catering, translations, schedules — yet much of this is achieved by volunteers coordinating dozens of moving parts. Organizers often rely on willingness and goodwill rather than formal qualifications. Mistakes happen, but the culture is supportive: volunteers step in and help, and the default is to enable someone to try rather than gatekeep them behind years of credentialing.
On the topic of technology and the future, Cathy remains hopeful about open source. She believes open platforms and open models will be critical as AI and other technologies evolve. Ensuring that open ecosystems stay vibrant requires investment, volunteer energy, and a focus on inclusivity: making it clear to newcomers that “we’re nice, we’ll talk to you, you belong here.”
WordCamp Canada is one place Cathy hopes to put these ideas into practice. She sees the conference as a midpoint light in a changing era: a place to demonstrate community resilience, to connect different generations of contributors, and to show young people what open collaboration can look like.
If you want to follow Cathy’s work or learn more about WordCamp Canada, you can find her at WPBarista and at canada.wordcamp.org. For more about this conversation and related episodes, search for the Jukebox Podcast at wptavern.com.
In short: WordPress events matter because they are places where people learn, belong, and give. They are practical responses to loneliness, engines for skills and hiring, and living examples of how open source can be both useful and humane. As the ecosystem faces new economic and technological shifts, the community’s willingness to say yes, welcome newcomers, and invest in the next generation may be its greatest strength.
