At St. Lawrence Parish in North Highlands, a homebound mother touched by a visit from a parishioner returns to church to practice her faith, attending Mass after a 30-year absence.

To the north, at St. Anthony Parish in Mount Shasta, a church organization assists people having to choose between purchasing prescription drugs and paying winter heating bills.

In Folsom, a number of former inmates of California State Prison Sacramento are seeing a path to start a new job and new life, thanks to a group of St. John the Baptist parishioners.

The Catholic lay organization embracing all of these people is the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Founded in 1833 by Blessed Frederic Ozanam, then a student of the Sorbonne University in Paris, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul began its mission assisting people to grow spiritually through reaching out in friendship to people in need.

The organization took as its patron St. Vincent de Paul, the French priest and social service activist.

St. Vincent de Paul members provide intervention and consultation services as well as direct food, clothing or financial assistance to disadvantaged men, women and children.

“We have a fellowship of people who are coming face to face with Christ ministering to the poor,” said Christine Cipperly, development director for the Sacramento Council of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. “We are going into their homes, providing them with hope.”

Bill Hallerman, president of the Sacramento Council, which includes 39 parish-based conferences throughout the diocese, said that the “backbone” of the organization’s ministry is home visits.

“Meeting with a needy person in their own surroundings to determine their needs gives them some hope for their lives,” he said.

Lisa Wire is a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at St. Lawrence Parish. She said home visits happen through the parish conference’s transportation ministry, which takes people to medical appointments, to shop for groceries or attend church services.

One assignment in particular opened Wire’s eyes to what unconditional love was all about.

She was making home visits to a woman coping with multiple sclerosis while caring for her son, a former police officer confined to a wheelchair following a motorcycle accident.

“Hardly anyone visited them anymore, but the mother and son had a love for the Lord that was so great,” Wire said.

After developing a friendship with the family, Wire felt blessed when she had the opportunity to drive the mother to St. Lawrence Church to attend Christmas Mass for the first time in 25 years.

“This ministry is not just about addressing physical or spiritual hunger, but about ensuring people are treated like everybody else,” she said.

Karen Mann, a Vincentian at St. Anthony Parish in Mount Shasta, said one of the best things about membership in the society is providing “a safety net for people who run into emergency situations.”

“One of the main things we’re doing is enabling people who might otherwise be homeless move into housing by providing security deposits, and helping with electricity,” she said.

Mann also counsels working parents trying to juggle bills to pay the rising cost of educating their children, works with other Vincentians staffing the parish food pantry, and has even put a family stranded in Mount Shasta on a Greyhound bus to home.

“During the winter we pay a lot of fuel bills so people don’t freeze,” she said. “We respond to the need.”

At St. John the Baptist Parish in Folsom, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul operates a food pantry, a clothes closet, and provides financial assistance for people struggling to pay rent and utility bills.

“We visit people at home, sit down with them and listen to their needs,” said John Knight, one of 22 parish conference volunteers.

Another innovative program supported by the conference is a collaboration with Friends Outside, a crime prevention program serving inmates, ex-offenders and their families.

Since it began in June 2004, Knight said, the program has assisted nearly 600 former inmates in their search for a job and “a better life.”

Looking to the future, Cipperly hopes to expand conference membership in parishes throughout the diocese, and expand the presence of youth conferences in parishes and Catholic high schools.

She said a youth conference at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Carmichael illustrates the potential of young people committed to St. Vincent de Paul ministry.

Founded several years ago by parishioner Sam Mussro, the youth conference involves seventh and eighth graders whose innovative fund-raising skills help fund the parish food locker.

“The kids learn charity, to love other people, and that there are poor people out there that need help,” Mussro said.

For more information about the Sacramento Council of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, call (916) 492-6396.

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