Florida Catholic | Spirituality Grows From Serving Needy

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY

Spirituality grows from serving needy – for 175 years

JANET SHELTON | FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST. PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 06.20.08

St. Vincent de Paul volunteer and St. John Vianney parishioner Ed Cook distributes trays to clients during a May 28 lunch at the St. Petersburg Center of Hope.
JANET SHELTON | FC

This time of year, things slow down in parishes and that makes finding ideas for cool stories and photos difficult.

So I’m turning to you. Let me know what’s going on in your parish. Tell me about the stuff that you and your friends are doing over these summer months to keep the faith alive and active. Tell me about the fun stuff, the prayerful stuff, the helping–others kind of stuff that people do all the time, but which never get attention outside your parishes.

It’s summer. It’s hot. My brain’s near fried and I need fresh air. Please help!

To contact me by e-mail, click HERE.

– Janet Shelton | 06.22.08

ST. PETERSBURG | The way Peter Burns sees it, people who don’t need organizations such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul will need them soon, and that’s a good thing for the St. Petersburg Diocese.

In 2010, Bishop Robert N. Lynch’s “Living Eucharist: Gathered, Nourished, Sent” initiative will reach the “sent” level, and local Catholics will be looking for groups such as Society of St. Vincent de Paul to put their faith into action. The society offers places where people can make a solid difference in their community as they grow in spirituality, he said, and Burns expects it to be popular.

For 175 years, St. Vincent de Paul has provided food, shelter, clothing and tangible assistance to people struggling with the “downs” of life. It has done so through everyday Catholics striving to increase their personal spirituality by working as the hands and feet of Christ. The work of the society often goes unnoticed. Let others call the press to share stories every time a check is cut; members of this organization act without fanfare.

“Here are folks quietly working behind the scenes for 175 years in countries across the world to help the poor,” said Burns, director of parish ministry support for the diocese. “They’re doing great things.”

The conferences, parish-based groups of laypeople, form the foundation of this society. It has been that way since the organization’s founder, Frederic Ozanam, and his schoolmates decided to put their faith into action by visiting and helping the poor in France.

Today’s Vincentians operate in 142 countries. According to the organization, the United States has 115,000 members who together helped 20 million people in 2006 and offered services valued at almost $500 million. There are 46 conferences in the St. Petersburg Diocese.

ANSWERING CALLS

Assistance often starts with a phone call to a conference. Vincentians take the information and then go out in pairs to visit the person in need. Typical requests are for help with electric or water bills or rent.

“They go in as the faces of Christ and as such bring compassion, prayer and assistance that may go beyond what the person has asked to receive,” Burns said. “They ask if there is enough food and (see if the people have) basic furniture. … It’s in the relationships with the people that they get to know the needs.”

Vincentians don’t ask for a lot of paperwork or proof of a certain income.

“We don’t ask for Social Security numbers and … so on,” said Joseph Ryan of Spring Hill, a Vincentian of almost nine years in the Citrus Hernando District Council. “They tell us what they need and hopefully we can do something.”

Instead of asking people to come to them, Vincentians visit the people. Ryan said he felt comfortable meeting people in their homes after two or three visits. He found the society enjoyed a good reputation among those who are struggling and with other help organizations and agencies.

Vincentians have the flexibility to get creative and help in areas where other organizations can’t. Ryan recalled a single mother of four who couldn’t afford car insurance. She had to have a car to keep her job, so the conference helped. Another woman was a long-distance trucker who lived well until she contacted severe eye disease. Her eyesight was to the point where she couldn’t work anymore, but the bigger problem was that she could not afford a prescription that would help her eyes.

“We said we’ll take care of it,” he said. “She wrote the most wonderful letter (of thanks).”

Vincentians do not force help on anyone. Once, Ryan’s conference was called out on a case because the mother was afraid to go to another agency.

“The mother worked as a housekeeper and in lawn maintenance. … She was alone with her mother and father, who both who were very ill,” he said. “The mother of all these children, she had bites all over her – insect bites. My friend and I said we would like to call the county and get some help. … She said, ‘No, no, I’m afraid they are going to take my kids away. She was so concerned about keeping her children. … Food, rent – all that was secondary to her.”

Most of the people greatly appreciate the help and the respect Vincentians give, he said.

“Many of the home visitation people will tell me people are so impressed and so moved they’ll embrace our volunteers. …They are just so overwhelmed that someone would come and not look down upon them, would not question them deeply about who they are and how they got in this position, but would simply say, “How can we help?”

“At our best, we can carry that spiritually of presenting ourselves as disciples of Christ to those we serve,” Ryan said.

SPIRITUALLY CENTERED

Because Vincentians work from the point of presenting Christ to people, personal spirituality is central to their work. But they do not preach to the people they serve; Vincentian spirituality focuses on the volunteer. A spiritual adviser, usually a priest, attends the meetings to keep people focused on their ministry, and spiritual growth often occurs when Vincentians see firsthand how the impossible becomes real.

A profound example of how St. Vincent de Paul can help came out of the St. Theresa Parish Conference in Spring Hill. The conference was called by a caseworker on behalf of a woman with cystic fibrosis who needed a lung transplant. She was medically qualified, but was being rejected because of her living conditions. The woman, dreadfully ill, and her 14-year-old daughter were living in a shed. They were getting water from a neighbor via a hose and electricity from the neighbor through an extension cord. The ill woman’s parents lived next door on what had once been the deck to their trailer, which had been destroyed by a hurricane. The only thing still functioning was the toilet, which everyone was using.

The conference started by taking up a special collection for the family and using thrift-store resources to buy a used trailer, the price of which was lowered substantially when the sellers learned of the situation. A local electric contractor did the labor for free, and the parents took out a $1,200 emergency loan from St. Vincent de Paul to get water piped to the site. Others volunteered labor.

“We put in air conditioning so it could be very hygienic,” Mathias said. “I think it took four months or so. But the family is there; they are all living in the trailer. They have their own electricity; they have their own water.”

The woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she couldn’t believe how much the Vincentians helped. She couldn’t believe how things came through because of the organization’s kindness and connections.

When she first learned they were coming to her home, she wasn’t sure she wanted them there.

“I was uncomfortable, (having them see) what I lived in – not with them,” she said. “I didn’t know what to expect. … Everyone was friendly and nice.”

Matthias said the conference did not plan on helping as much as it did. It just worked out that way, the way it often does. God had a plan and it felt good to be part of it.

“The family has been through hell and back, and now they can see some light in the tunnel,” Matthias said.

MORE PEOPLE NEED HELP

Most of the time, Vincentians see people who are barely getting by during the best of times fall into crises when something unplanned occurs: physical limitations, a car repair or, as the conferences are seeing more and more now, a sudden increase in expenses such as gas and food.

Steven Girardi of the conference at Espiritu Santo Parish in Safety Harbor volunteers four mornings a week at the parish’s food pantry. Here, food donations dropped into baskets in the church are given to people needing food and Vincentians talk to the clients to try and address other needs. Girardi said the conference doesn’t draw attention to its work – that’s the Vincentian way – but the word always manages to reach donors and the struggling.

“It’s funny, the people who need us know how to find us,” he said. “I guess that what really matters”

He said the pantry tries to tailor food baskets to the situation.

“If somebody has little kids, we load them up with more cereals. We usually have chicken or hamburger or hotdogs.”

St. Vincent de Paul money comes from church poor boxes, benefactors and other sources. Many of the conferences in the St. Petersburg Diocese get additional money from thrift stores operated by the district council. It was those district funds that helped the woman who needed the transplant.

BEYOND PARISHES

District councils mix resources to serve their clients, such as federal and city grants, thrift-shop sales, donations from supermarkets and church and community food drives. They operate communitywide projects such as soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and clothing, food and furniture programs. The St. Vincent de Paul Center of Hope shelter and food kitchen in St. Petersburg serves the hungry three meals a day and operates a transitional housing facility where homeless men and women, many of them military veterans, can live for up to two years while they save money and address issues that led to their homelessness. At night, the food center dining room turns into an overnight shelter for 60.

“The dining-room chairs are placed on the tops of tables, which frees up the floor space, and the people are given mats and blankets,” said Patricia Waltrich, executive director of the South Pinellas District Council. “So many of them are working day jobs and it provides them a safe and comfortable place for rest. We’re not a permanent shelter. We are a stopgap.”

The Center of Hope also offers showers to the homeless. With help from the city of St. Petersburg, it recently added a storage area where homeless people can store their belongings during the day.

“We have a trailer on the property – 40 feet long by 20 feet wide – and there are 192 bins in the storage unit,” Waltrich said. “People have access to the unit from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. every day. They can stow their stuff safely.”

Waltrich said she continues to be amazed at the work of the conferences, and really at everyone involved in St. Vincent de Paul. When a Vincentian asks for help, her or she often get it without much question. People donate their time, their skills and their knowledge.

“It’s a rare occasion where the conference says, ‘Sorry, we can’t do anything,’” she continued. “It’s like the Seabees. It’s like, ‘Yeah, I think we can do that.’”

Mathias said Vincentians are just people who do their best and let God to do the rest. Ryan said most of the people he has known through St. Vincent de Paul are quietly spiritual – men and women more comfortable with helping than preaching.

“They work like dogs. … They’re drawn to something bigger than themselves,” he said. “They let their actions speak for them, which to me is a wonderful way to do things. Put your faith where people can see it, don’t throw it in their face.”

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