Call the St. Vincent de Paul Helpline, 206-767-6449, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.

Your request for assistance will be emailed to the SVdP conference that serves your address. A Vincentian will call you within 48 hours.

We are funded through the generosity of our St. Vincent de Paul parishioners, who provide donations of money and food.

We also thank Knights of Columbus St. Joseph Council #7528, at St. Vincent Parish, which supports our mission with financial contributions.

Here’s how you can help:

• Financial donations: Use the monthly envelope in your church envelope packet or give online through the parish giving site (choose “Society”).
• Food donations: Place nonperishable food items in the SVdP donation bin located in the southeast corner of the church narthex.

A young law student named Frederic Ozanam founded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in 1833 in Paris, France. Ozanam and five friends wanted to form a group to assist the poor and decided to call it “Conference of Charity.” It was later renamed the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, after the patron saint of the poor.

The founding members met with Rosalie Rendu, a Daughter of Charity who served in the most impoverished part of Paris, for guidance. She sent them on home visits and modeled the idea of serving the poor with dignity and respect. Ozanam and Rendu were beatified by St. Pope John Paul II.

The first meeting in the United States took place in 1845 in St. Louis, Missouri. The U.S. has over 4,600 Conferences with more than 146,000 members, who each year give well over 7.6 million hours of volunteer service, participate in over 650,000 home visits, and manage another 900,000-plus visits to prisons, hospitals, the elderly and others in need.

This service to the poor amounts to over $330 million, and the in-kind value of food, clothing and furniture totals over $80 million.

(Source: St. Vincent de Paul Seattle/King County)