ATLANTA--St. Vincent de Paul week was held Sept. 9-13 throughout the Catholic schools in the archdiocese. Six of the Catholic elementary schools spent the week expanding their awareness of the society. Members of the kindergarten and first and second-graders at Immaculate Heart of Mary School collected school supplies for St. Vincent de Paul to distribute to needy children. Students from the third, fourth and fifth grades wrote St. Vincent de Paul a check for over $400. The money was generated through a school sponsored Walk-a-Thon. Students from St. Joseph's, Marietta, and Our Lady of Lourdes, Atlanta, collected canned goods and personal hygiene items during St. Vincent de Paul week. Meanwhile students at other schools have already begun planning their SVDP food drives which are held annually before Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Society, whose motto is "No act of charity is foreign," was founded in 1833 by Venerable Frederic Ozanam and five friends while attending the Sorbonne University in Paris. This group of Catholic men believed that the Catholic laity did little to live their faith and began visiting the poor in their homes, providing them with whatever assistance they could. The Society began in the U.S. in November 1845, in St. Louis, and the first conference in Atlanta was started in May, 1903, at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Atlanta.