Latest / Catholic Spirit Radio / Catholic Conversations #179: Unveiling the Impact of St. Vincent de Paul Society

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Catholic Conversations #179: Unveiling the Impact of St. Vincent de Paul Society · Catholic Spirit Radio

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Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit Radio Hello, everyone,
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and welcome to Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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I'm Paul Garcia, and today we're talking all about the powerful and very active
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ministry in our community, the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
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Many have heard the name, but not everyone knows what they do or how they serve those in need.
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Today, we're honored to be joined by Tim Abel, Steve Nolan, and Chris Kornfeld,
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three men who are deeply involved in this work and can shed light on the different ways the St.
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Vincent de Paul Society operates here in our beloved towns of Bloomington and
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Normal, maybe even the surrounding area.
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But gentlemen, Tim, Steve, Chris, thank you both, all of you for coming in today.
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We really appreciate it. Absolutely. You're welcome. Yep, glad to be here.
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Awesome. Well, we are glad to have you. And Tim, I will start with you here.
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Well, actually, before I even start with you, Tim, I want to ask all three of
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you, And we can go Tim to Steve to Chris.
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What are your official positions? What parishes are you a part of? What do you do?
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Yeah, so, yeah, Tim Abel here. I can start off. I'm a member of Most Holy Eucharistic
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Parish at the St. Patrick's Church out there.
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Been involved in many different aspects of that church.
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Currently a member of the Knights of Columbus. Do a lot of volunteer work through that.
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I've been through Crucio, been involved with tech quite a bit.
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In fact, just coming up back off a big tech weekend.
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And, you know, when I look at it from a St. Vincent de Paul,
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you know, I look at it as being an advocate for this organization.
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And in this particular case, an enabler to bring both Steve and Chris together
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here to talk about it today.
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And then just an overall supporter of the organization.
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And so you mentioned that Most Holy Eucharist, a relatively new name for the
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now combined parishes of St.
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Mary's and Downs and St. Pat's of Myrna in Bloomington, correct?
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Correct. That is correct. Yeah, that is correct.
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Got it. And Steve then, so who are you with and what is it you do primarily?
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Well, I am currently the president of the Holy Trinity Conference of St. Vincent de Paul.
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So my prime affiliation is with Holy Trinity Church, but we actually work with
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all the Catholic parishes in town.
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And I've been doing that for 12 years now.
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When my wife and I retired 12 years ago, we started volunteering at Midwest Food Bank and St.
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Vincent de Paul. And I've continued that for the last 20 years and probably
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will continue it as long as I can.
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Absolutely. And correct me if I'm
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wrong here. You said the Holy Trinity Conference. Is that right? Correct.
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And how many parishes are there that you cover?
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Is it just in Bloomington and Bloomington Normal or even some beyond that?
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The Holy Trinity Conference, St.
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Vincent de Paul has to be affiliated with one Catholic church,
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and so we happen to be affiliated with Holy Trinity.
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The Holy Trinity Conference has actually been around 70 years, approximately.
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It started in the 1950s, and there was only a short period of time where it
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did not exist. But we officially became affiliated with the National St.
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Vincent de Paul probably about nine or ten years ago. So, but we've,
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the good works that the Holy Trinity Conference has done has existed for over 70 years.
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Right. Okay. And then Chris, last but not least, who are you with and what are
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your primary responsibilities?
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So I'm currently the president of the conference that's based out of St.
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Patrick Church of Myrna or the Most Holy Eucharist Parish. But we have members
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that are part of Epiphany, St. Mary's Downs and St.
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Mary's in Bloomington as well. So we've kind of expanded our outreach,
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not only for volunteers, but also for funds.
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But, you know, like Steve said, it's based out of St.
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Patrick's. That's where we originated from. But as the need has grown,
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our need for volunteers and money has grown. So we've started to reach out similarly
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to what Steve has done at the pantry.
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So before we go any further and talk about how the funds are going with St.
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Vincent de Paul societies, how those societies are faring in communities,
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things like that. I want to ask, for people who do not know,
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and whoever wants to answer this, go ahead.
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What is the St. Vincent de Paul Society? Where does it come from?
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What are they? Or what is it? So I'll give it a shot.
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So it's kind of an interesting story. There was a man, and I'm going to forget his name now.
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Frederick Osinam? Yeah, Frederick Osinam. He was going to college in France,
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I believe in Paris. and there were lively conversations amongst the undergrads.
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And one man started accusing the Catholic Church of not caring about people.
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He says, if you guys are so great, show me your works.
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And Frederick Ozanam took it to heart and started to see what could he do,
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to show the world that the Catholic Church cared about the poor.
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And so he started the St. Vincent de Paul Society. He had read a bunch about St. Vincent de Paul.
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And my favorite part was, so they were young, they were in college.
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So they reached out to a woman, Rosalie Rendu, because she had done some work with some other St.
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Vincent-type organizations.
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And she helped them learn how to go out and meet with the poor and offer assistance
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and compassion and caring and hope.
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And it started, like I said, started in Paris and it's now a world, it's all over the world.
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I think it first came to Kansas City or St. Louis in the U.S.
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But yeah, I know I've been in Ireland and saw a thrift store, a St.
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Vincent de Paul thrift store. I was in Paris once and saw a St.
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Vincent de Paul truck drive down the street.
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So it's kind of neat to see the reach that we have.
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Absolutely. And any idea why it's named after St. Vincent de Paul? What did he do exactly?
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Well, I mean, I think he did things very similar to what Frederick Ozanam was
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trying to do, but about 500 years earlier.
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So I think Frederick Osinnam just kind of picked up the mantle that St. Vincent de Paul had.
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Or as somebody put it in something they read, he used to just be Vincent de Paul.
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He wasn't always the same. But yes, he was a champion for the poor.
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Understood. And Steve, I'm going to turn it to you now then.
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What are the primary responsibilities of the St.
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Vincent de Paul Society? What do they do nowadays primarily?
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What do they do in your conference and for this community?
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Well, let me state that most conferences, from what I've seen,
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are focused on financial assistance and visiting those in need,
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well, where the need is in their home.
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Our conference at Holy Trinity is a little bit different. We used to do the
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financial assistance, but today, rather than competing at doing that with other conferences or St.
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Bridget here locally, we just focus on food, our food pantry,
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our clothing pantry, and our garden ministry.
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And so we focus on that.
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And our theory is pretty simple that if we focus on food, we do that really well.
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And by focusing on the food ministry, we gave away $6.5 million worth of food and clothing last year.
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So by doing that, That's an awful lot of... It is a lot.
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But I should also point out that we aren't in just Bloomington Normal.
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Our conference serves the entire
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McLean County area and occasionally a few people outside of the county.
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So our reach, our numbers...
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Don't just reflect Bloomington Normal. They reflect the need in the county.
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And a lot of the people we do serve come from, you pick your city,
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Stanford, El Paso, you know, Chenoa.
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They come from a long distance, but they come from places where no pantry exists
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or not a large enough pantry exists to meet the needs of the family.
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And a lot of these families are blended families.
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A lot of these families are, the average size we serve as an example is four to five people.
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That's the average family, but some people are single, single mothers,
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divorced individuals, people who are on Social Security who have lost their
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husband, and we serve a lot of blended families.
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You may not see it in Bloomington Normal, but it exists.
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The largest family we served so far this last two years had 32 members in the
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household, and we served one last week that had seven adults and seven children in the household.
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Now, you may not think that exists, but it does exist. It's just not evident
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to a lot of us that live a little different way.
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So that's our focus. We also have the other thing that allows us to do what we're doing.
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We have 207 active volunteers, and those volunteers literally come from every
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Catholic church in Bloomington Normal, and they also come from other non-Catholic denominations.
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Not only do we not discriminate who we serve. We welcome anybody that has a
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big heart and wants to go through the training that we put them through to serve others.
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So we probably have 500 to 600 volunteers a year.
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We have students that come from Corpus Christi, Central Catholic High School,
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other high schools in town.
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We just think it's a good experience for everyone to see how fortunate they
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are to have what they have and give everybody the opportunity to do God's work.
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Absolutely. That is so incredible. And I love that the local Catholic schools
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get involved as well, because that's so important for those kids to see that
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not everyone has what they have.
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But on that note, I want to ask, how do you go about actually helping?
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You said you gave away food.
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How millions of dollars worth of food last year. How do you go about doing that?
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Are you dropping off boxes at homes? Are people coming to a soup kitchen at the church?
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How do you go about giving people these things that they need? And what do kids see?
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Okay, our food pantry is kind of unique in that due to the size,
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I probably should tell you this up front too.
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On an average week, we're open six hours on Monday officially.
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We have served in June anywhere from 474 families to 540 families in a Monday in six hours.
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We're also open two Saturdays a month, the second and fourth Saturday.
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And on average Saturday, we've been serving 130 families.
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To serve that many people now, what we do that's different than most pantries,
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it's they don't get the opportunity to shop, but we do give them a cart full of groceries.
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So they're getting, they're getting a, I'll call it a frozen bag,
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a produce bag, a refrigerated bag.
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They get, you know, cereal and we try to give them, they get a protein bag, they get a drink bag.
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And so when they go out of there, they've got a lot of things that they can
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use. But unfortunately, when we serve that many people, this is kind of a post-COVID thing.
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As we started doing what we call a drive up during COVID.
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So that's, we bring them through, we put it in their trunks.
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We give them some choice, but not as much choice as we'd like,
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but you have to make a decision.
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Do we serve everybody or do we give them choice?
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And most pantries give them choice, but in our case, we give them a larger quantity
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and a larger variety and maybe some healthier foods that most pantries don't
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have the opportunity to give out.
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We took over the, I call it the old Holy Trinity Junior High School downtown about seven years ago.
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And when we rehabbed that building, we made one classroom into a refrigerator,
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another classroom into a freezer.
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We turned the gymnasium into a warehouse that can hold a couple hundred pallets of food.
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And that's how we're doing what we do. So God sent us that building.
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God sent us the volunteers. And the food that we get, so everybody understands,
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it comes from a lot of sources, but it primarily comes from Midwest Food Bank
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here in town, the government food bank out of Champaign, and then a lot of the
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local grocery stores donate as well.
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Aldi's, Kroger's, Jewel, you pick your grocery store.
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I think literally every grocery store here in town donates to some food pantry.
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I don't think there's much waste here in Bloomington Normal.
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That is so awesome. I love that. And we're going to go to break here in just a second.
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And when we come back, Tim, I want to ask you a few questions about what inspired
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you to get involved with this group in the first place.
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But man, what an operation that the St. Vincent de Paul Society is running,
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especially, I mean, here in Bloomington Normal.
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Never would have guessed. Never would have guessed that that many families were
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even in need, let alone coming to the, what do you call it exactly,
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I guess? Well, we call it the food pantry. It is a food pantry.
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Again, the food pantry operates in the hours, I think, that I mentioned already
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on Monday for six hours, nine to 12 in the morning, one to four in the afternoon.
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The clothing pantry operates on Monday from nine to 12 in the morning.
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And then the Saturday hours, if I didn't already mention it, is nine to 11.
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So those are our hours. They aren't. but we need to restock the pantry.
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We need to regroup. We need to pick up food.
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So we aren't open a lot, but we distribute a lot of food when we are open.
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And then the garden, these numbers will kind of blow you away too.
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We have probably one of the largest gardens in town. We planted 200 tomato plants
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this year and 100 pepper plants as an example.
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And that will all go in the weeks ahead.
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Wow, amazing. They're doing so many great things, everyone. We're going to hear
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all the more about it here in just one moment.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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I'm your host, Paul Garcia, and I have the honor of speaking with Tim Abel,
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Chris Kornfeld, and Steve Nolan, all of the St.
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Vincent de Paul Society here in the Bloomington Normal area,
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even the greater McLean County.
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And Tim, I want to ask you here, what are the goals of the St.
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Vincent DePaul Society.
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And how do you guys get more support? Do you have enough support?
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Tell me all about it. I would say that, you know, both Chris and Steve can probably
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speak to this a little bit better, but I'll try to do my best.
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You know, I think, you know, us being here is drawing awareness to what both
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of these conferences are doing in this community as much as anything.
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That's got to be goal number one, getting more support from joint support,
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you know, from the parishes.
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I think when you look at what the bishop has been trying to do and getting more
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unity among the Catholic faith within this community, I think St.
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Vincent of Paul drives that.
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And I think that's the reason why both of these men are here today,
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you know, to kind of talk about what they're doing and, you know,
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the opportunities for us to serve those in need and, you know,
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to have a centralized purpose,
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and then understand that this is a great ministry that's serving the poor in this community.
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And I remember hearing at Most Holy Eucharist now, formerly St.
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Pat's of Myrna, I forget, it was just a sermon, I believe, and there was someone
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maybe got up on behalf of the St.
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Vincent de Paul Society, and they were talking about, you know,
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a lot of times, yeah, of course you do help the poor a lot, but you also help
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people who are just in a tight spot. Is that correct? It could be a single mom
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who has a job, but it's having a tough time making ends meet.
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And that is a very, very stressful place to be because you don't necessarily
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feel you're qualified to utilize these things that the St.
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Vincent de Paul Society offers. And that can be so helpful, even spiritually
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nourishing for you, give you exactly what you need.
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But yeah, it's mostly the poor, but then some people that you might not think of as being poor.
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Is that fair to say? That's absolutely right. I think Chris has got some really
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great stories that he could share with us about the different visits that,
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you know, that the conference, you know, members have been able to do.
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And, you know, I've heard Chris reiterate again and again, numerous different
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times, oh, there's this one, and I've encountered this.
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So, yeah, it's not just the poor, but the marginalized or, you know, in a tough situation.
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I think we were having a conversation before we came in here about,
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you know, you can be so close.
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You're coming along and everything's going well. Your health can go bad,
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you can lose a spouse, you know, there's just a variety of different things that can happen that.
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Totally unexpected. And then all of a sudden, where do you go?
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Where do you turn? And here's St. Vincent of all the help.
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It's so, so interesting. I hear people talking right now a lot about,
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for some reason, healthcare.
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A lot of people get upset about healthcare and what it does and does not do,
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what it covers and what it doesn't cover, and how people can find themselves
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in a really difficult spot after the most tragic thing happens.
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Maybe it's losing a spouse, just like you said. And I love the fact that we
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can say there are people to help. Sure, maybe your family can't help.
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Maybe certain groups can't help. But the St. Vincent de Paul Society,
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it sure seems like they are willing and ready to help people in those situations.
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But on that note, Chris, I want to ask you, do you have maybe a brief story you can share with us?
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Well, yeah, I mean, I could share a couple hundred stories with you,
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but more to kind of what we were just talking about.
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You know, I think about when I was younger, my wife and I were living paycheck
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to paycheck, which a lot of people do.
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And all it takes is a sickness, a trip to the hospital, maybe if somebody in
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the family died, had to leave town, and you can't pay rent that month.
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I've visited people that work in very well-established businesses in town,
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but hours got cut due to things outside of their control.
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And so, hey, we don't need you for eight hours each day.
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We need you for four hours. and now there's not enough money to pay the rent.
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I remember going on a visit, a man, he lived in a trailer and his sister came
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to the visit because she wanted to make sure that we understood what was going on with him.
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He just had his fiance die in a car crash.
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Oh. And he could not go to work.
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He just couldn't go. And we just sat and listened and let him know that we cared.
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And we helped him with his ride.
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Oh, beautiful. We, I met a woman last week.
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She, her husband passed away within the last year. He paid all the bills.
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She doesn't know what to do. She does, he did it.
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And some angel from, you know, Nick straight over came by and she's helping
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her get things put back together. her water was shut off we got her water turned back on on Monday,
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Yeah. Lots of single moms with kids.
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It's not just people who are trying to take advantage of free money.
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It's people who really need it.
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Absolutely. It is amazing the things you do. I've spoken to some people maybe
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over a year ago on this show who were with the St.
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Vincent Paul Society, and it's a whole lot of stories just like that.
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There's no shortage of beautiful, touching, spiritually nourishing stories that
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give you hope and help you to really believe in the things that the Catholic
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church is doing, that they do care about these people, the marginalized, the poor, the needy.
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And it's just so amazing. It gives us so, so much hope.
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And it really makes the church look great too, you know?
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And you'll go ahead, Chris. I sort of got my favorite, I saved my favorite story
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for last. This wasn't one I went on. It was somebody else.
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A woman had just moved into a new apartment.
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And you think about it, these people, you know
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maybe they get evicted maybe they can't afford rent so they go
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find someplace else they don't have the money to
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pay for someone to move their furniture from apartment
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a to apartment b so a lot of times we go
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visit people and there's no furniture so in
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this particular case this woman had five children and he
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said for some reason i just thought
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to ask her do your kids have beds and she said
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no they don't so he said i knew
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of a guy his name's carrie kern has a used furniture
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shop over on the west side of town went to find him and told him about the situation
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and carrie said i'll give you five free beds all i need you to do is pay the
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ten dollars for the the deliver Not the delivery fee,
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the bed frame.
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And he had his guys take the mattresses to her that day.
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And our Vincentian said he called her later and she said, you wouldn't believe
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how happy my kids are to have a bed to sleep in.
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Now, I don't know that my kids ever were grateful for the bed that they slept in, but, you know.
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The things we take for granted. Yes, absolutely. My goodness,
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and of course, going from no bed to your own bed. Right.
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Unbelievable. Right. I imagine they were jumping up and down on them. Yeah.
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That's incredible. Like I said, no shortage of inspiring stories coming out
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of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
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And Steve, you mentioned during the break something, gifts in kind.
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What exactly are gifts in kind?
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Well, naturally, all St. Vincent and Paul conferences can use cash,
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whether we're giving out the cash or in our case, we use it for our operational
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expenses to purchase gasoline for our vehicles or to run the electricity or whatever it might be.
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But our conference has been blessed.
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One example, this last week, we had a local Catholic parishioner that used his
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RMD this year to purchase a small tractor for us.
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And that tractor is going to allow us to plow our garden, probably plant more things.
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It's going to allow us to cut our grass a little bit quicker,
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move snow and do lots of things, move compost.
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And it's just such a blessing to see things like that happen.
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And along the same line, we had another local parishioner in Bloomington-Normal
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from another church that donated a box truck to us or another parishioner that
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donated a what I call a pallet stacker so we could get pallets on and off of
26:10
vehicles and up and on shelves.
26:13
Those things. And even the – we don't have any full-time employees.
26:18
We have none. Nobody gets paid.
26:21
And so we have people donating, attorneys donating time.
26:26
We have accountants donating their time. Last week, we had Sherwin-Williams
26:30
here in town that came and donated the labor and paint for painting our building.
26:35
To me, those types of donations, depending on what your expertise is, you can donate to St.
26:42
Vincent de Paul. If you're a plumber, if you're an electrician that comes and
26:46
donates his time, those things are really huge for us because we don't have
26:50
to go out and spend money to do those things.
26:53
Right now, we could use some internet expertise. You know, we're always looking
26:56
for the skills that people already have.
27:00
Metronet, get on it. Yeah, that'd be a great. Correct me if I'm wrong.
27:04
It's got to feel good for those businesses, not only feel good,
27:07
but maybe even be good publicity to say, hey, we help the St.
27:11
Vincent de Paul Society.
27:13
Is that fair to say? Are people proud to help?
27:16
Well, what we're trying to do, anybody that donates, we posted this week the
27:20
tractor that was donated. We have a Facebook page that my daughter runs that
27:25
has over 2,000 followers.
27:28
We post a lot of things on there when people donate, like we did that for Sherwin-Williams.
27:34
We'll do that for the local stores when they make an extra donation.
27:37
So, yes, it is good visibility, but I think the big thing we all need to keep
27:42
in mind, this isn't about marketing. It's about helping people.
27:46
And regardless of how we do it and who does it, It isn't important what church
27:51
we're affiliated with or what our skill is. The important thing is that we're doing it.
27:56
And you hit the nail on the head. I really feel that anybody that comes to a
28:01
pantry, they're not there because they want to be there.
28:03
It's tough to come the first time.
28:08
Matter of fact, some numbers that I looked at this last year,
28:11
50% of the people, no, 60% of the people that come to our pantry,
28:15
they only come less than three times a year. They only come when they have to come.
28:20
We have some people who only come every two or three years.
28:24
So most people are not gaming the system.
28:27
They're coming because they really need our help. And we're there to help them when they need us.
28:33
That's right. I can only imagine, especially as a man, I think it's a little
28:36
tougher to humble yourself to the point and say, I need this.
28:41
And it's kind of a beautiful thing. You know, we've talked to priests before
28:45
about confession. And in order to go into confession, you have to first admit
28:48
that you need to go to confession.
28:50
And now I'm going to confess what might feel like my sins to a man,
28:55
but really it's to Christ. It's hard.
28:57
You have to humble yourself. There's no place for pride. Pride and that humility cannot coexist.
29:01
So yeah, that's really an amazing thing And it does not surprise me that people
29:06
are only coming when they need to come It makes sense And on that note,
29:11
for people that don't know And Tim, I'll go to you for this And if anyone else
29:15
wants to jump in, by all means How do people go about utilizing these services?
29:20
If I find I'm with a family, my family I am paycheck to paycheck Work's not good,
29:26
maybe I'm laid off or something And we need food, we need some clothes we need
29:31
who knows what, how do I get that stuff from you guys?
29:37
It's a good question. I think each conference does it a little bit differently, right?
29:42
Chris, you can probably reference on your side what you guys do.
29:46
Yeah, so with us, the best way to contact us is call this phone number, 309-264-5815.
29:56
It's a call center over in Peoria that we use, that is used by all the other St.
30:04
Vince DePaul societies in the Peoria Diocese.
30:07
Could you read that number again, please? Yeah, it's 309-264-5815.
30:13
If you like websites better, there's www.svdpbn, so St.
30:20
Vincent de Paul, Bloomington Normal, svdpbn.com.
30:24
So someone will call the phone number, somebody at the call center picks it up,
30:29
figures out what church that person is geographically located with,
30:35
and that information gets sent over some software and we have coordinators that
30:43
will then assign cases to two members of our group and we'll go out and visit
30:51
those people in their home,
30:52
figure out what their need is, ask them how things are going.
30:57
And we decide if we can help and how much we can help with and we'll pay,
31:04
we pay the landlord or the utility company because we just help with rent and
31:10
utilities. We'll pay them directly.
31:13
Two good reasons for that. One, that keeps us from having to send a check to
31:19
somebody then again, the check to somebody else.
31:21
But more so we know it goes to where the need is.
31:24
And I really like that it's person to person. You go to their home.
31:28
That's unlike most corporations do anything. Even the ones that are supposedly trying to help you.
31:32
Right. They don't go to your home and talk to you face-to-face and go to your
31:35
landlord face-to-face. It's so personal.
31:37
And that's, I believe, what God intended.
31:40
You know, it's not down the pipeline. You have to trust it. So you lose a percentage
31:44
along the way and stuff like that.
31:46
I think that's incredible. It is. It is.
31:51
Most of us would say we get more out of the visit than we think the person that
31:55
we serve. And we call them friends in need, so we shorten it to Finn.
31:59
But, yeah, we feel like we walk out of there in a better place than when we walked in.
32:05
And, in fact, I know myself personally, you know, everybody has a bad day.
32:10
You go do one of those visits and your bad day is never like one of their bad days.
32:16
Absolutely. Yeah. And I liken it to exercising. You know, it's good for your
32:21
physical health to exercise and to eat right.
32:23
And it is crucial for your spiritual health and even your mental health to go
32:28
do these things that God asks us to do.
32:30
It's not just a recommendation.
32:32
It's really necessary for the sake of our society, for the people in need and
32:37
for ourselves to do this spiritually nourishing thing.
32:40
And I've got more questions for you guys when we come back into our third and
32:43
final segment here in just one moment.
32:45
I want to ask a little more about how do people volunteer? here?
32:49
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Hello everyone and welcome back to Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit Radio.
35:53
I'm your host, Paul Garcia, and we are talking all about St.
35:56
Vincent de Paul Society right here in the Bloomington Normal area with Tim Abel,
36:00
Steve Nolan, and Chris Kornfeld of the Holy Trinity Conference and the St. Bridget Conference.
36:06
So many great stories, so much I've learned in this great conversation,
36:10
and I know you've learned as well.
36:12
I want to ask on this final segment here, Chris, I'll start with you.
36:16
Your primary focus with the St. Bridget Conference is financial assistance.
36:21
Tell me, financially, do you
36:24
have adequate funds right now to do all the things that you want to do?
36:27
And what do you want people to know? How can we build awareness about St.
36:33
Bridges Conference and the St. Vincent de Paul Society within.
36:36
Okay. So I'd like to start by just saying that our mission is to keep people
36:42
in McLean County from becoming homeless.
36:45
Get them through a rough time. We're not trying to help make every other house payment.
36:50
It's just somebody that needs us temporarily.
36:54
And the demand is huge.
36:57
I mentioned we have a call center.
37:00
We have to call the call center at least once a month and say, hey, we're out of funds.
37:05
Tell them we're not taking any more visits.
37:09
So donations are key. And I think people have been very generous.
37:16
But I mean, just as an example, in 2019, the average rent price in Bloomington Normal was $815.
37:26
Now it's over $1,300. So the money that we get isn't going as far as it used to.
37:32
So, you know, we'd love a large donor, but every dollar that we get matters.
37:39
And almost all of it goes to the people we serve.
37:43
We do have some overhead. We have a website that I mentioned earlier that we have to pay for.
37:50
We have to pay dues to the upper parts of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
37:55
And we've got, you know, our treasurer has to send out the checks and she She
38:00
needs envelopes and stamps.
38:02
But, you know, I'd say close to 90% of what we get in goes right back out.
38:09
And just like Steve, all our people are volunteers.
38:12
None of our people are paid. And speaking of volunteers, we can always use more.
38:18
We've gotten a lot of new people this year.
38:22
But, you know, we get 10 in and five leave and five more leave.
38:28
And it's not an easy thing to do. I have a lot of people that tell me I couldn't do that.
38:33
And conceptually, I understand. But having done this, I don't.
38:39
It's just a wonderful thing. And we offer training and mentorship and make it
38:46
easy for people to get up to speed.
38:47
So nobody's on their own and we'll let them become comfortable before we have
38:54
them lead, you know, a visit.
38:57
So real quick, just so we can get it in there.
39:00
If I myself, for example, wanted to get involved with your conference and help
39:06
one, what first thing, what is my first step?
39:10
What should I do after I leave this studio? And then also, what can I expect to do?
39:14
Do I have a choice? Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that.
39:17
So most of us do home visits and anyone can do a home visit.
39:24
So there's no special skills needed.
39:27
We also have coordinators. So we have people that take the calls and assign
39:33
them out to the visitors and do a lot of the paperwork.
39:37
And that is a vital part of our organization. If we don't have that, we don't do visits.
39:43
We have a treasurer who has informed us that she will be moving in a year.
39:49
So we're going to need a new treasurer.
39:51
We need leaders, people that are able, ready, and willing to help us make sure
39:59
we're doing things the right way, similar to what Steve has done with his board.
40:05
And most importantly we need prayer warriors people that are praying for what
40:10
we do and who we meet and and just trying to do god's will and if i want to
40:18
make a donation specifically to your.
40:21
Conference can i write a check who do i make it out to who do i mail it to yeah
40:25
so i mentioned to our website earlier, and I'll mention it again, www.svdpbn.com.
40:33
If you go to that website, there is a place on there where you can donate.
40:39
So I would love to hear that we got a lot of people that donated in the next coming weeks.
40:46
But yeah, just reach out. And there's a phone number on that website that,
40:51
you know, for people that need help can call, but, um, you know,
40:54
you can get to us that way as well. And my only last little thing here.
40:58
So we do carathons here a lot at Catholic Spear Radio.
41:01
Once you get over the age of 70, the website donations, they go way down.
41:06
Yes. Is there a place that people can send a check to? Cause I know they,
41:10
a lot of people prefer that. Yeah. That's a good question.
41:13
Yeah. Our treasurer gets, I mean, we get, checks get sent to St. Pat's at Myrna.
41:17
You could send a check to St. Pat's at Myrna and our treasurer goes in there
41:21
occasionally and picks them up.
41:23
So. And maybe just write in the memo, St. Vincent de Paul.
41:26
And Epiphany and both St.
41:30
Mary's do collections. So if you're at one of those churches and you want to
41:34
donate, there's ways to do it through the church there as well.
41:37
Sure. Right. And if you just call their offices, I'm sure they'd be more than
41:40
happy to help you with that too. Yeah.
41:43
Okay. Got it. And so again, you can visit that website, svdpbn.com.
41:51
That's St. Vincent de Paul, Bloomington, Normal, svdpbn.com.
41:56
You can also mail checks to St. Pat's of Myrna and the other parishes involved
42:02
and just mentioned that it's for St. Vincent de Paul Society.
42:05
And regarding people wanting to utilize or needing rather to utilize your services,
42:11
where can I go if I need some food for my family?
42:15
What is the location? What are the hours? Anything you want to tell me or anyone
42:20
listening about how to utilize your services and get food, get the guard,
42:25
and maybe you can remind us one more time about the services that you do offer.
42:28
And I'm talking to right now Steve Nolan with the Holy Trinity Conference.
42:34
Okay, for the Holy Trinity Conference, the food and clothing pantry is at 705
42:40
North Roosevelt Avenue.
42:42
You actually enter the property on Chestnut Street.
42:45
And again, we're open on every Monday for those six hours that we noted, 9 to 12 and 1 to 4.
42:52
And we're actually, it's pretty easy to find. We're just west of Holy Trinity
42:57
Church in downtown Bloomington.
42:59
So I call it the St. Vincent de Paul campus borders, Center Street,
43:04
Locust Street, Roosevelt, and Chestnut. So that two-square block area.
43:08
And we are in the process of actually purchasing that property from the diocese.
43:13
So we hope to finalize that about August 1 here and take over the building.
43:18
The other thing I might, so that's where we're located.
43:21
The other thing I might clarify on the donation, from a donation standpoint,
43:26
if somebody wants to actually donate to the food and clothing pantry,
43:30
you do have to designate the funds to the Holy Trinity Conference,
43:34
and you can mail those to the 705 North Roosevelt Avenue location.
43:41
We're not competing. It doesn't really matter where the funds go.
43:44
If somebody wants to donate to visit DePaul. Yeah, but I'd take it anyway. Yeah.
43:51
But for us, it has to come to that 705 North Roosevelt Avenue location.
43:56
And the only other place we collect funds in town is at Holy Trinity Church.
44:01
All the other church donations would go to St. Pat's of Myrna or to St. Bridget Conference.
44:07
I see that. That is really interesting. And so just to clarify,
44:11
if someone makes a donation to the St.
44:13
Vincent de Paul Society and they have to specify St.
44:16
Bridget's Conference or the Holy Trinity Conference, this doesn't go directly
44:22
to some higher up who then disperses it out.
44:25
It goes to your conference and you decide what to do with that.
44:28
But maybe a point of clarification, too, because I have been a sponsor,
44:33
cash sponsor, you know, of the Bridget Conference for a long period of time.
44:37
Even though you can do it online, as Chris referenced, you can still make out checks.
44:41
You wouldn't necessarily make it out to St. Patrick's Church in Merlin.
44:44
You make it out to St. Vincent de Paul and send it to them.
44:47
Same thing, I'm pretty sure, probably for the Holy Trinity.
44:51
You make it out to, you know, St. Vincent de Paul, it'll get cashed.
44:55
If you make it out to the church, it gets a little bit more complicated.
44:58
So they are different entities.
45:01
Well, and we've had situations where somebody donated money to us.
45:04
And we send it to them, and then they send it back to us, and then trying to
45:09
figure out who they really wanted to send it to.
45:13
Yeah, right, right. Yeah, I'm sure in the coming years, you know,
45:16
this is going to get more and more clear.
45:18
It's only going to get better and better, and you guys are only going to do more and more good.
45:22
It's incredible the work you are doing and all your volunteers and the scale
45:26
at which you're doing it. It's amazing.
45:28
And to me, it's personally shocking how amazing it is because I didn't really
45:33
get that. I didn't know the scale and all the good things you're doing.
45:38
But gentlemen, Tim, Steve, Chris, thank you so much.
45:43
And if there's anything else you want to say to our listeners,
45:45
please go ahead. So I just thought of something.
45:47
So Steve mentioned that they served like 500 families a week.
45:54
I'd say in the course of a year, we might help 250 to 300 families.
46:00
So we don't have quite the
46:04
diversity of need as the
46:07
food pantry does but yeah we've we've
46:11
probably and i can't verify this but i'm sure we've given away over a million
46:16
dollars in our less than 20 years unbelievable founded in 2009 and i should
46:21
say we've given other people's money away right Yeah, I mean,
46:26
it's through the generosity.
46:27
It's really God's money, right? It's just in our pockets. Yes.
46:30
So we got to give it up. Yes.
46:32
And Steve, you were going to mention something as well. Yeah,
46:35
I had maybe a couple of quick points I wanted to make. We do have a separate
46:38
website for Holy Trinity.
46:42
It's svdp-ht.com.
46:46
Pantry.org. And that's the website somebody would go to if they wanted to donate
46:52
directly to the Food and Clothing Pantry.
46:54
You can donate there through PayPal.
46:57
And that's also the website people would go to if they want to volunteer at
47:02
the Holy Trinity Conference.
47:04
And we do have requirements, I should emphasize that, like they've got to go
47:07
through safeguarding training,
47:08
and we bring them in and show them the opportunities on
47:12
a Friday of what the pantry is and the different
47:15
things they can do and try to match the individual to their
47:18
skills and their abilities because not everybody
47:21
can stand outside in the heat and distribute food or in the clothes the winter
47:26
and do that because we are outside 365 days a year so regardless what the weather
47:31
is some of our volunteers are outside and we don't get any complaints but you
47:37
need to be prepared for that if you want to work outside.
47:40
The other thing I guess I wanted to mention was, which has really just come
47:44
up in the last couple of months,
47:46
there's not a food shortage of such as such just yet, but the government has
47:51
cut back significantly on food donations to all food pantries.
47:57
And we've probably seen as much as a 50% reduction in what we get at our pantry.
48:02
And from the people I've talked to at both pantries and food banks,
48:07
it's pretty clear that that's beginning to impact all of us.
48:12
We're seeing less food coming in, and the supply of food, everybody's competing
48:18
for the same food. So it's kind of going in different directions than what it used to.
48:24
Fortunately, at least at this point, we haven't had to cut back,
48:27
but it is possible with the need going up and the supply going down of food
48:32
that it's going to become more and more difficult for all food pantries, including ours,
48:38
to meet all the needs of all the people.
48:40
And we do expect the needs going up with SNAP benefits aren't what they used
48:45
to be, and more and more people just don't have the benefits that they used to have. So pray for us.
48:53
I would ask everybody to pray every day for St.
48:57
Vincent de Paul, pray for the volunteers, and pray for our benefactors,
49:01
and especially pray for the needs of our clients.
49:04
Absolutely. St. Vincent de Paul, pray for us. And Tim, Steve,
49:08
I heard from you guys. Chris, is there anything you wanted to add?
49:11
You're looking at Tim. Oh, I'm sorry. Chris, Steve, Tim, is there anything you wanted to add, Tim?
49:17
No, I don't think I do. You know, just summing it up, you know,
49:20
when I look at it, that these are two great missions that have been around for
49:24
a good long period of time in this community.
49:26
And I think there's great opportunities to volunteer. There's great opportunities
49:30
to donate to both of these in some capacity.
49:35
And, you know, the greatest limitations, I think, are not there.
49:41
Are bookended by the fact that there's only so much financial support.
49:46
And so I don't, you know, you get 10 days in and you're out and you could,
49:50
you could serve 250 families, but it could be a whole lot more given the financial,
49:56
you know, capabilities that were there.
49:58
So that support would be super helpful. And I think Steve could echo that same thing. Absolutely.
50:03
Great. Yeah. And Chris, just to clarify last thing here, of course,
50:08
if someone wants to give the Holy Trinity conference, They should,
50:11
well, they need to make the check out to the St.
50:13
Vincent de Paul Society of the Holy Trinity Conference and mail it to that address,
50:19
which is 705 North Roosevelt Avenue, Bloomington, Illinois.
50:24
But if someone wants to make a check out to the St.
50:27
Bridget Conference, is it true? Can they mail to any other parish in Bloomington
50:31
Normal and just designate it to the St.
50:34
Bridget's Conference? Yeah, I'd say make it out to St. Vincent de Paul.
50:38
If you're going to one of the St. Mary's or Epiphany or St.
50:42
Pat's, it'll get to the right place. Yeah. Got it.
50:45
Okay. So there you have it, everyone. If you want to get involved, you can get involved.
50:50
Well, so who should I get involved with?
50:53
If I want to volunteer, I know you guys have already mentioned it and I apologize
50:56
if you've already said this.
50:59
Do we go online on the website?
51:01
So yeah, if you go to our website, you can email me and it comes to me directly.
51:07
So just let me know you're interested in helping out and, or with,
51:11
you know, with whatever questions you might have and, and we'll.
51:14
We'll take care of it, yeah. And I'm sure if you call any of these churches, they'll help you too.
51:17
Oh, yes, they know who we are. Holy Trinity, can I get involved with the St.
51:21
Vincent de Paul Society, the Holy Trinity Conference?
51:23
Yes, I'm sure they can do that. So there you have it, everyone.
51:27
If you want to get involved, you can use their websites, call any of the churches
51:30
they're affiliated with.
51:31
You can make checks out to the St. Vincent de Paul Society, but be sure to designate
51:36
which conference you want that to go to. If possible, if you want to give to
51:40
the Holy Trinity Conference, mail it to the address, 705 North Roosevelt Avenue,
51:44
Bloomington, Illinois.
51:46
And if you want to make one out to the St. Bridget's Conference,
51:49
I don't believe there's a brick and mortar headquarters or anything that you can mail to.
51:53
You mail to either the St. Mary's, the St. Pat's of Myrna in Bloomington,
51:57
or you can mail it to Epiphany Catholic Church in Normal.
52:00
But designate St. Vincent de Paul Society, St.
52:03
Bridget's Conference. these guys are doing so much good all in the Peoria Council
52:08
amazing things are happening with the St.
52:11
Vincent de Paul Society and more people need to get involved they need
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to donate time they need to donate their efforts they need to donate their money
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it's all God's money at the end of the day it just happens to be in your pockets
52:22
right now so thank you guys for doing what you do and anything else you want
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to say otherwise just thank you
52:29
for coming on absolutely appreciate the opportunity thank you Paul Okay.
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I'll leave everybody with the story. All right. Okay.
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So there's a little boy. He's on the seashore and there's a big pile of starfish.
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The starfish have all come up on the shore and he's picking them up and throwing
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them back into the water.
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And this man walks by and he says, what are you doing? He says,
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I'm putting these back in the
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water. He says, well, you're never going to be able to save all of them.
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And the little boy picked one up. He says, yeah, but I saved that one.
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And we're not going to be able to help every person in town,
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every person in the world, but we can help them one person at a time.
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And it just reminds me of our founder, the founder of EWTN, Mother Angelica.
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If you can save, if we can save one soul, all this is worth it.
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Especially since each and every soul is infinitely valuable. I love that story.
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You can save that one and you're saving a lot more than just that one.
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So everyone, remember St. Vincent de Paul Society in your area.
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We're spanning all across Illinois and lower Wisconsin as well.
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So guys, support your local St. Vincent de Paul Society in the Bloomington-Normal, McLean County area.
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Support these wonderful conferences that have St. Vincent de Paul Societies.
53:42
It is an honor to be talking to you guys. And until next weekend,
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everyone, may you all have a great week and may God bless you all.
53:49
You've been listening to Catholic Conversations.
53:52
Download our podcasts at Catholic.
53:54
Music.
54:19
Hello friends, and thank you for joining us. I'm Fr. Wade Menezes with another
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segment of The Crux of the Matter.
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The Latin Rite Church, both during and after Vatican II, has continued to encourage
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the use of Latin during Mass.
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True as this may be, the Church's teaching on this topic has never really seemed
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to flourish after 1963, the year that the document on the Sacred Liturgy was
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promulgated by the Second Vatican Council.
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While it is true that the Second Vatican Council encouraged the vernacular,
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that is, the mother tongue of different countries,
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to be employed in the liturgy so as to encourage a greater participation on
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the part of the faithful gathered together for sacred worship,
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it was never really intended that the Church's own universal mother tongue,
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that is, Latin, should be done away with altogether.
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In fact, Sacro Sanctum Concilium, Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,
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states that the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites of the
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Church, and that steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able
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to say or to sing together, in Latin, those parts of the ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.
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Examples of the ordinary parts of the Mass would include the Gloria,
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that is, the glory to God in the highest, the Credo, that is,
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the Apostles' Creed, the Sanctus, the Holy, Holy, Holy, the Pater Noster,
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the Our Father, and the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God.
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Another important point regarding sacred music. The Constitution on the Sacred
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Liturgy also states that the Church acknowledges Gregorian chant, which uses Latin,
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as specially suited to the Roman liturgy, and that as such it should be given
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pride of place in liturgical services.
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This has been another edition of The Crux of the Matter.
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God bless you. For more information about the teachings of the Catholic Church,
56:09
go to EWTN.com and click on Faith.
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You.