North District Report: March 2025

• We continue to do home visits and utility assistance.
• We organized a successful blanket drive in our parish.
• We continue to contribute regularly to the Blvd food pantry via our parish food cart.
• We continue to have many parishioners volunteer at the Pratt Quigley food pantry, the Distribution Center & Mission 27 store.
• We will also continue to sponsor a candidate at the St Matthew Changing Lives program.

• St. Luke home visit teams continued to respond to helpline requests, a majority of which were for rental assistance. In some cases, we were able to provide (in tandem with other churches and agencies) assistance sufficient to fill a temporary financial shortfall for a family in paying rent….. but in a couple of situations, the amounts needed by a family to avoid eviction were simply too large for us to handle. Indianapolis families having difficulties in paying rent sadly do not in many cases have access to consistent and adequate sources of assistance to avoid eviction.
• Our home visit teams are fully trained on ServWare, and the software platform has really helped us in scheduling and tracking our home visit activity.
• We received a very generous year-end gift from at St. Luke parishioner which will help us to respond to requests for rent and utility assistance and to purchase beds for adults as needed.

The IHM Conference recently completed an CLF program. We had 9 graduates. A truly moving experience. We had one client we helped. We are in the planning stages of “40 Days for 40 Beds”. We are going to be giving our Pastor a tour of the SVDP facilities.

St Joan of Arc has sent $2000 for beds over the last 2 months to the Indy Council, $1000 to the BL Food Pantry, $500 to the Bike Program.

• Received $800.00 Catholic Relief Services Rice Bowl Grant
• Disbursed $697.00 for the purchase of beds for neighbors.
• Disbursed $1,000.00 in rent payments.
• Disbursed $5,603.00 in utility payments.
• Disbursed $300.00 for grocery gift cards to be provided to neighbors during home visits.
• Provided a $1,600.00 contribution to the St Andrews conference.
• $180.00 for Servware dues.
• Making plans to provide 20 Easter food baskets with grocery gift cards to be distributed on Palm Sunday.
• Participating in the Indianapolis Council 40 Days for 40 Beds program.

St. Rita’s St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Conference continues to meet on the 1st and 4th Sundays of each month.   Individual members volunteer at the Client’s Choice Food Pantry and at Mission 27 Warehouse when possible.  Brenda Ray and Brenda Montgomery are helping St. Lawrence Parish with their Changing Lives Forever (CLF), program.  Brenda Montgomery is serving as their Lead Facilitator and Brenda Ray is handling all spiritual sessions.  There are 18 sessions scheduled to take place each Thursday, beginning Thursday, March 27, 2025.  This CLF group should graduate on July 31, 2025.

Our home visitors had 27 neighbor requests in February 2025, and have had 22 requests so far this month, ( March 2025).

• Starting in early November, I have started to implement the use of the ServWare program in a sort of baby steps mentality.
  • We communicate to the group by sharing a PDF of the request via email and then once someone assists the neighbor in need, I am updating that information in the system once I get a report back on the nature of assistance and so on.
  • We are hopeful in the coming months that our volunteers will start uploading their own information/updates when they help our neighbors in need, John Hansberry and I are continuing to learn the system so we can then hold a “how-to” meeting.
  • Since early November we have had approximately 30 calls to date.
• Nature of our Needs Calls
  • Most of our calls most recently have been for financial support.  We are continuing to support our neighbors but we are seeing more of them needing larger sums and requiring second and third groups to assist as well.
  • We have had a handful of warehouse calls as well, with just a few needing home visits as they are looking for beds.
  • We are continuing to encourage the use of the food pantry and Mission for all our neighbors to take advantage of.
  • We also supported a few families with the help of our SPX Christ in Christmas group during the month of December.

• St Matthew has been busy doing home visits for our area (47 last year) including sometimes for St Andrew when they are overwhelmed.
• We’ve held 2 food drives in the last 3 months —taking several carloads to the 30th Street FP.
• We’ve helped a record number with utilities & rent assistance.
• We recently  voted to assist St Andrew with $5K for their huge amount of rent & utility requests.
• We also spent $ to buy many folding tables, dishes, wash & dishcloths for clients needs at DC.
• St Matt continues to have many (over a dozen) parishioners volunteer weekly at DC & FP.
• Barb Dudley, a Tuesday DC volunteer pays for drinking water for DC volunteers.  One Sat morning per month Ray Meckauskas leads a group of about 12 parishioners  in volunteering for special projects, alternating between DC & FP.
• We have medical retirees volunteering at the FP Medical Ctr & others who do home food delivery & visits to many local shut-ins each Wednesday.
• The kindness & generosity of volunteer time & resources continues to impress me.  They do more than expected & they don’t necessarily report it to me, but I sometimes hear about later.

Since October the St Andrew Conference has helped 450 Neighbors with necessary utility requests (39), home visits (78) and in-kind referrals to other agencies. We are participating in the 40 Beds for 40 Days campaign to help neighbors in need.  St. Andrew Confernce in partnership with St. Pius X are preparing for their first Changing Lives Forever cohort that will begin March 31st, 2025.

No report submitted.