Offerings and Services
Since the Miami Archdiocesan Council’s inception in 1970, over 10 million people have been helped during this 44 year period, with an estimated total dollar assistance of over a half-billion dollars in both food, cash and in-kind services. This has been accomplished by our Vincentians, while donating over 15 million hours of volunteer service on behalf of clients served.
The following is a list of 20 services provided by the Conferences and Councils in the Archdiocesan Council of Miami, which have grown from six or seven in 1969–70, its founding year:
- Service to anyone in need
- Food programs
- Emergency financial assistance
- Transportation programs for seniors
- Disaster relief and victim services
- Rent / mortgage assistance and help with low-cost housing
- Twinning with shelters for the homeless
- Thrift stores
- Employment services
- Job training
- Counseling / information
- Referral service
- Budget counseling
- Youth programs
- Social justice programs
- Advocacy
- Twinning, foreign and domestic
- Hospital ministry
- Burial of the indigent
- Embracing the lonely, forgotten, and alienated
Note: While the above services and programs are provided by the National SVDP Society, not all of them are currently provided by the South Florida St. Vincent de Paul Society and its Community Good Works programs.
You will find out that charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the bowl of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give bread and soup. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor…they are your masters, and the more demanding they are, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is for your love alone that the poor will forgive you (for) the bread you give them.