JoJo Mattingly

The wobbly door to the central office of the Saint Vincent De Paul Society leads into a drab room. The walls are faded and the necessary desks and sofas sit in a random pattern.

Just one bright spot catches the eye. It is a small, hand-made tapestry woven in bright pink and orange with the words, “To Meet Another’s Needs Is to Meet Christ Himself”. This message is the real spirit of the Society.

It is the same spirit that inspired the founder, Frederic Ozanam, in 1833. He was then a student at the University of Paris and was dissatisfied with the trend in the Catholic Church to favor the rich and aristocratic. So he and six other students formed the Conference of Charity.

They helped the spiritually and materially poor on a person-to-person basis and adopted the humble St. Vincent De Paul as their patron. From these small beginnings, the Society has grown to a world membership for over a half a million.

The average parishioner probably has a vague idea of what the Saint Vincent De Paul Society is. To him it may mean the neatly dressed businessman who stands outside church each month collecting dollars and dimes. It may also mean the announcements the priest make to urge donations for the Society’s work.

But just what is this work? The same man who collects money on Sunday also gives many hours each week to helping the poor of his parish. He attends regular meetings of his conference, the parish unit of the Society. At these meetings, the conference president leads discussions and assigns the members to small committees which work on the needy cases.

The parish priests suggest most cases, but the member himself must keep an open eye for families in trouble. One member said, “We are constantly aware of the need to keep our help very secret and direct, so we visit a man in his home or meet him at the rectory. Our first approach is of course on a spiritual basis.

“Then we counsel him about his particular financial needs. Since the Society is NOT a welfare organization, we steer away from giving advice about marital or family problems. We try to provide for the basic needs of shelter, food, and clothing by planning a budget and sometimes giving monetary help.”

The Vincentian is usually a man settled in his own profession or business. Therefore he knows the right sources for help, whether it is an employment agency, a bank, or a local doctor.

“Each individual case is so different”, said the member. “We may have to find someone a job or locate the store with the best food prices for the family budget. The Society member spends many volunteer hours on the phone and in his car.”

In America, the basic unit of the Society is the parish conference. A particular council coordinates the activities of all the conferences in a certain area or city. In Atlanta, the presidents of the 18 conferences serve on the Particular or Diocesan Council.

Currently the Particular officers are Dr. Spalding Schroder, president; Sam McQuaid, vice-president; Cleophus Olds, 2^nd vice-president; Joseph Flanagan, secretary; John Thompson, assistant secretary, and James Dolan, treasurer.

The Council has established a Central Office to work on special projects outside the parishes. Dr. Schroder told the history behind the activities of this office.

“Back in 1965, the president of the Council, Henry deGive, and the secretary, Joe Murphy, started some work with the inner-city. They opened a store to sell goods to the poor and also began a tutorial program for the children from the Bedford-Pine neighborhood.

“Most of the conferences were not really aware of these new programs until they became more successful. Then we decided to hire a full-time executive secretary, Joseph Flanagan, to handle the Central Office.

“I think this new phase of the Society’s work is just a sign of the changing times. All people today are more concerned with helping the poor and we are merely keeping up by working with a larger group of people.”

Joe Flanagan used to sell insurance in Lake Charles, La. Then he began to wonder if he was doing enough to prove the Catholic Church’s concern for the poor.

The offer of a job as executive secretary for the Saint Vincent De Paul Society in Atlanta came just at the right time.

He said, “The central office has contact with all the public and private agencies concerned with helping those in need in metropolitan Atlanta. Because we are one of the few agencies that will give emergency assistance to anyone in time of need regardless of race, color, or creed, we are called on daily by other agencies such as Welfare and Economic Opportunity Atlanta. Every call is referred to the Conference of the parish in which the needy person lives.

“The Society has a store operation at 444 Edgewood Avenue. We receive clothing and furniture from donors and sell them at prices suitable to the income of the poor.

“We also administer an Inner City Fund which is the result of special collections taken up in all churches in October of 1967 and 1968. This money is used to help the conferences. The bulk of it, however, is used for social programs in the inner city. Most of the Society’s special programs help the Bedford-Pine neighborhood, located east of the new Atlanta Civic Center. It includes the area formerly known as Buttermilk Bottom and is now an urban renewal area, so the residents have an apathetic attitude about their conditions of poverty because their surroundings are in a constant state of change.

With the help of various government agencies, the Society now has a home here at the Eastside Community Center, 547 Hunt St. It shares this center with EOA.

About 18 eager preschool children come to the center twice each day to attend Head Start classes. Mrs. Tim Yoder directs the morning sessions and a resident of the Bedford-Pine neighborhood, Mrs. Porter Hubbard, directs the afternoon classes. Volunteers from various parishes take one day a week away from their housewifely chores to help teach.

Judy Felker, the educational director of the inner-city programs, said, “We try to prepare these children from school by teaching colors, numbers, and letters. They also learn discipline by listening in a group. I believe the Head Start classes have been successful so far because the students love it and the parents have shown a definite interest.”

If little Johnny goes to Head Start, he probably has an older brother or sister who goes to tutorial classes at St. Joseph’s High School.

An old bus rumbles down Merritts Avenue every Monday and Wednesday night and the driver honks the horn loud and clear. The boys and girls flock to the door ready to go to “night school” as they call it. When they arrive at the high school, their tutor is waiting to help them with homework or special problems in math or reading.

Jacques LeVasseur, a theology graduate student at Emory University, helps to coordinate the tutorial program. He has the help of about 40 tutors, male and female, students, businessmen, mothers and grandmothers. They all give two hours a week to help these youngsters feel a sense of self-respect.

Mr. Flanagan believes that the people of the poverty area are beginning to feel that somebody cares about them. “I can walk down a street and even the residents who don’t know me personally know that I am there to help them. We are hoping to start more projects soon, such as a community organization for adults and a medical center. Dr. James Brawner III is chairman of the planning committee for the clinic and he already has some volunteer doctors.

“However, there is a constant need for more and more volunteers to help our Society bring the message of Christ to the poor.”