By Rita McInerney

In its wide-ranging works of charity, the Saint Vincent de Paul Society continues to expand the vision first defined by Frederick Ozanam, a young French student who gathered a few friends together in 1833 to do works of charity for the poor. Their efforts were to be humble and discreet and within the framework of their professional and family lives.

As those young Frenchmen felt the desire to bear witness to their Christian faith by actions, as they saw in the less fortunate the suffering Christ and regarded them as brothers and sisters, as they loved them and tried to give them a share of their own time, so do the Vincentians of today.

They are a varied group of men and women who serve the needs of the poor in 1986. The needs are everywhere. In a time of affluence, joblessness, hunger and homelessness increase. Children are victims of stress, women are dehumanized by battering and divorce, the elderly struggle against loneliness and to make incomes cover the ever increasing cost of staying alive. Drugs and alcohol ruin the lives of users and their families.

In the parishes, Catholics band together with love and compassion in Saint Vincent de Paul conferences to help their hurting brothers and sisters. Their dedication earns the respect of their pastors and their fellow parishioners. For many people their visits, counseling and financial aid make the difference between despair and hope.

At the downtown Atlanta Saint Vincent de Paul office, which is supported by an archdiocesan collection this weekend, those in need in the inner city find the same spirit of assistance.

Being active as a Vincentian for more than 20 years has become a part of “the fabric of my life. To be with them, to listen, has affected me tremendously,” says Ellen McCoy, vice-president of the executive board which guides the overall work of the society in the archdiocese. She is also president of the conference at Transfiguration parish in Marietta.

Even as a youngster, Ellen McCoy says, “I was interested in where these people live. God has honored my curiosity and given me the gift of availability. Saint Vincent de Paul has been the way for me to actually enter their lives. It has given me an appreciation for each person’s human dignity.”

She believes that the society has been a silent work over the years but now “it’s time to tell our story” of the “real Christian outreach, what one person can do for another.” A sensitive, soft-spoken woman, she has found her own strength increases when she goes in “Jesus’ name to try and convey in some way that we genuinely care for them, whether we help them financially or not.”

For her, a rewarding result of working both on the board and in the parish conference is the networking it prompts when a request challenges the limits of the society. “It causes you to stretch out to try and discover ways and means of helping, not just writing a check,” she finds.

It’s exciting to Ellen McCoy that Saint Vincent de Paul is becoming “a real grass-roots evangelizing tool in a non-verbal way,” in the south where there are so few Catholics.

“In showing Christian love to people with chaotic life styles but also with a deep love of God, whether or not they go to church, it becomes an opportunity to say ‘I came here because Jesus loves you,’” she says.

“The poor are the catalyst for the churches coming together, the poor are telling others that the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, the Catholic Church, helped them.” This, she finds, is helping change attitudes of people of other denominations.

On the parish level she spends most of her time in visiting, mainly mothers living with their children in shabby trailer parks strung along highways in north Cobb and southern Cherokee counties. “These women are so strong, they work so hard in the struggle to survive. It’s changed me to be strong. I feel a need to speak for them because they don’t have a place to speak for themselves. They’re on the fringe of life.”

Some of these women she visits for years, slowly building up a trusting relationship. Just being there, she finds, eventually gives them a feeling of worth, a feeling that maybe they can follow through on their own lives, to go on and try again.”

One woman she’s been visiting for five years just recently said to her “All I know about the Catholic Church is that you help the poor.” To Ellen McCoy this was the highest commendation. Work with the society has brought another dimension to her life, she admits. “It’s almost an accident, so subtle, the shifting from social work to spiritual.” And she marvels at how it came together through “doing something to make a difference.”

The conference at St. John Neumann parish in Lilburn raises a lot of its funds for good works from its Second Time Around store stocked with furniture and clothing and located on Highway 29 in Lilburn, according to Jack Connolly, president.

He says there are about 80 volunteers who operate the thrift shop. “Without our dedicated volunteers in the conference and at the store we could never do what we do for the poor.” Since July the conference has helped 22 families. Paying utility bills, giving food, finding jobs, taking people to the doctors were some of the works of charity.

Along with his leadership of the parish conference, Connolly serves as vice-president of Harbor House in Lawrenceville, a soon-to-be opened family shelter that has been spearheaded by Frances Manchester of St. Lawrence parish. This is an example of the networking that Ellen McCoy calls a challenging aspect of Vincentian work. “We had the funds to help” is Connolly’s explanation for the link.

“We live in a very prosperous area where there is a devastating need once you go down the side roads,” he says. He began developing an awareness of the needs of others when he worked with the homeless in the New York area. It was then he realized “there was so much out there to be done.” In the Saint Vincent de Paul Society he found his way of serving.

Right now the conference is gearing up for Thanksgiving and Christmas when generous parishioners provide money for the turkey and trimmings food baskets. Last year 70 families had a brighter Thanksgiving and 86 families some joy at Christmas because of the spirit of sharing at St. John Neumann.

Connolly says the conference helps people in Duluth and Loganville as well as in the Lilburn area. “If the need is there, we’re there to help. If the Lord sends them our way we should at least try to help them.”

Indirectly, the Lord has sent them 180 orphans in Chile that the Lilburn conference has been helping for the past two years. Now, Jack Connolly says, four orphanages in Peru will be assisted by conferences in the Atlanta area.

And none of this would be possible, he says, “without the terrific support of the parishioners.”

Living in an affluent area like Gwinnett County, Cora Riedlinger says, her life “could be very comfortable without Saint Vincent de Paul.” Work with the conference at St. Lawrence church in Lawrenceville, which she serves as president, makes her constantly aware the poor are there as well as in downtown Atlanta. And yet, she says, “if you listen to statistics you wouldn’t think anyone was in need.

“We’re kidding ourselves to think there are no homeless in the county. Many come here to work, there are jobs, but then these families don’t have the funds to set themselves up in a home.” There is a long waiting list for what low income housing there is in the county, she adds.

She is working with Frances Manchester, another Vincentian from St. Lawrence, to open Harbor House, a family shelter which would provide temporary housing for such families.

The homeless in Gwinnett, Mrs. Riedlinger says, are further handicapped because of the lack of public transportation which could take them to sources of jobs or public assistance in Atlanta.

A recent success story the St. Lawrence conference had a role in was the case of the divorced mother and her child who were put out of the apartment they had been sharing with a friend. The conference sheltered the two in a motel room for a night, provided them with, and helped the woman get control of her life in other ways. Now, Mrs. Riedlinger says, the woman is going back to work.

Another example of Vincentian helping is with an elderly couple overwhelmed with doctor and druggist’s bills. The couple was so embarrassed by their debt they hesitated to make another doctor’s appointment although the husband’s condition (he had a stroke) demanded he see him. The conference paid for a visit and also helped pay the druggist bill which can reach two hundred dollars a month.

Much of the conference budget of $1,000 a month goes for rent, Mrs. Riedlinger says. Putting people up in motel rooms, sometimes necessary because of the scarcity of shelters in the area, can amount to $100 a night.

Cora Riedlinger worked with the Legion of Mary while a young girl in Cork City, Ireland, her birthplace, and she sees a lot of similarities between that organization and SVDP.

Zeno “Bud” Sutter was a veteran of over 20 years with the SVDP in Toledo, Ohio before joining the conference at Our Lady of Assumption in Atlanta 12 years ago. He works with the homeless, the sick, drug and alcohol abusers and people sorely in need of help with managing their incomes.

When he goes to people on budget counseling visits for the first time they often dump their bills and papers onto the table from a paper bag or shoebox. One woman, he says, was afraid to open her mail because of all the bills and threatening letters she was getting from attorneys. When her SVDP counselors opened they found a check for $130!

This woman, Sutter says, was separated and had one child. She was getting reasonable child support but didn’t know how to manage her money. The husband had handled all the financial affairs before he left her. Sutter says “she is doing great now” after counseling.

One young couple he helped had debts of about $6,000 when he first met them. He would visit on a Friday evening, with just one condition, that they both be there. He trained them in money handling and just recently saw them in the supermarket. They proudly told him how well they were doing. The husband is working shift work and can be with the children while she works.

There years ago, “Bud” Sutter and Sister Carolyn Oberkirch, pastoral minister at OLA, began visiting a woman suffering from cancer. They supported her emotionally through a year of painful chemotherapy and now, a survivor with her own shop in Lenox Square, she calls him now and then to let him know how she’s doing.

He has been working for some time with a young couple, unmarried, homeless when he first met them. She was pregnant, they slept in an elevator at the MARTA station or in an abandoned hotel near Sacred Heart Church. It’s been an up and down case, Sutter says. He brought the young woman to Sister Elise Schwalm and Sister Caroline for counseling. Later she took up with someone else. The young man wants his child but drifts in and out of jobs. “He can be working, seeming about to make it, and then drift away.” The OLA conference has paid his rent, helped him find jobs. Sutter, in the Vincentian way, keeps trying to help both young people to a stable life.

And what has the Saint Vincent de Paul Society done for “Bud” Sutter? It’s given him a “a better understanding that money isn’t everything and how to better appreciate your own life.” He would advise others to join. It’s an opportunity, he says, to learn that some of the tragic problems people read about in the newspaper and see on the television screen from all over the world are also right here.

Another Vincentian veteran is Spalding Mills who has been active with the conference at St. Anthony’s in Blue Ridge since the conference was organized about five years ago. Before that he was involved with the SVDP at St. Michael the Archangel in Miami for 25 years.

The conference is small, Mills says, 12 members, all husbands and wives. The requests received are mostly for help with paying utility bills, the rent, or for food. The conference used to operate a thrift store, he says, but lost it when the old house next to the church was torn down. They are looking for another shop but rents are too steep, he says.

The conference in Blue Ridge is a good example of the networking that is one expression of Vincentian endeavor. In this mountain town, Mills says, the Catholic parish conference works closely with the Community Action Agency, the First Baptist and United Methodist churches, the Mental Health Association and the Family and Children’s Service.

The SVDP buys the food it distributes to the needy from the Community Action Agency which, in turn, purchases it from the Atlanta Food Bank. And the Vincentians send people in need of clothes to the two churches which have clothes rooms.

The members visit families, some of other denominations, some unchurched, the sick of their own parish. There are not many transients, he says. Most people own their own homes but some lose jobs and need help.

His work with the SVDP has made Spalding Mills realize that he has “been blessed by the Lord Almighty very much. I’ve never had to face the problems many people have to face, never been unemployed, our children (he and his wife Rosemary have eight) have always been fairly healthy. It’s given me an opportunity to love God through loving my neighbor.”