By Cathy Smith
St Vincent de Paul is a ministry with the mission to live the Gospel by helping the poor in our community. We do this by providing emergency assistance for rent or utilities for a person or family, we call them neighbors, going through a financial crisis. It is a beautiful way to live the Gospel and as Jesus shared in Matthew 25, when we reach out to vulnerable folks in need, God shows up in amazing ways and we are all moved and transformed. We see this every day in our ministry.
We are celebrating 10 years of St. Vincent de Paul at St. Francis. In that time, we have shared many stories of the individuals and families we have assisted. But what do the numbers look like?
In 10 years, we have assisted over 2000 people. We have provided almost $400,000 in assistance. The amount of assistance has increased nearly every year due to rising rents, increased food costs, and other impacts on a family budget.
Last fiscal year, the utility assistance more than doubled from the previous year and rent payments rose almost 25%.
Our assistance helped to avert over 550 potential evictions and to avoid over 240 shut-offs of utilities.
The needs are anticipated to continue to be great.
Our ministry receives a yearly grant from the parish tithe. Increasingly though we have had to depend on other sources beyond the parish tithe. We have applied for and gotten some outside grants. But individual donations from parishioners and others are a huge component of the support we get for our neighbors in need.
We are extremely thankful to the people of the parish for your generosity and support for the work of St. Vincent de Paul. We look forward to our next decade of ministry.
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