Volunteer visitors from the St. Vincent de Paul Society put their hearts into helping neighbors. 

When members of the Brown Bag ministry at St. Francis found that a gentleman in the senior apartments they served was in trouble, they contacted SVdP. 

Visitors learned from a social worker the neighbor had fallen several times in the night in his apartment because he couldn’t see because the utility company had shut off his electricity. The neighbor has declining cognitive abilities, and his brother has been paying his bills. Unfortunately, the brother had not been around for a while and was not answering his phone. Since this was unlike him, SVdP members and the social worker thought something must have happened to him. In the meantime, bills went unpaid, and the electricity had been off for a while before the problem was discovered. 

SVdP paid the neighbor’s outstanding balance on his electricity bill and his service was reinstated. The resident coordinator at his apartment complex can manage his few bills with his Social Security income so he remains safe in his apartment. In addition, the Brown Bag ministry members will keep a special eye on him.

Sometimes it takes a St. Francis of Assisi village to serve those in need.