South Central Indiana District Report: March 2025

District Meetings:

• February 4, 2025 – District Meeting Held via Zoom
• April 1, 2025 – Upcoming District Meeting at St Bartholomew Parish

40 Days for 40 Beds

• Three conferences (Martinsville, Bloomington, Columbus) are proceeding with this campaign.

Attendance at the February 4th District Meeting:
Jim Clerc, District President & Columbus/Bartholomew County, Marilyn Clerc, Columbus/Bartholomew County, Bob Zerr, Bridget Dolan & Steve Keucher, Bloomington/Monroe County, David Garrison, Martinsville, Ed McGarrell, Brown County and Shirley Boardman, Brown County and District Secretary, Vickie Ernstes, North Vernon, Steve Goebel, Shelby County and Deacon Charlies Giesting, Spiritual Advisor.

• Dave reported that since our last meeting our calls average around three a day mostly for food, rent and utilities.  We’ve had very few calls for motel rooms especially during our recent cold snap.  We attribute this to the Cold Shelter Program started at a local church.  Our group recently met to discuss any issues our callers may have had and continued with the Serving in Hope program.
• On a side note, the chair of the local United Way asked me to be on the board representing SVDP for the Emergency Food and Shelter Program for Jackson County funded by FEMA.  The task of the board is to approve/disapprove any applications from local non-profits.  I’m not sure at this time if our conference can utilize this fund, but we may come away with other groups we can refer our clients to.
• We have secured a new member who will take calls from the helpline when a regular member cannot.
• Our relationship with the Township Trustee continues to provide us with increased capacity to provide funding and to serve our community.

• We continue to expand our home visit activity and our helpline has been very busy. We are currently limiting help to $300 per call as we have spent quite a bit of money in the last couple of months.
• We are available to host Ozanam training on May 3 or will send multiple members to the Bloomington one if you choose to go that route.
• We are currently in the process of applying for a raffle license. This year’s drawing will be on September 7.
• David Garrison attended the February 4th District meeting on the conference’s behalf as Dean had a scheduling conflict.

Vicki reported the following:

• Assistance Report – December total assistance was $11,835.79. 62 cases were handled representing 62 households with 203 members; of that total $2,126.80 was for food. January total assistance was unavailable at this time.
• Financial Report – Our January meetings were canceled due to the snowstorm, so that financial information is not currently available. However, the truck expense we were to pay has been postponed. When the new truck arrived, it was much bigger than anticipated and not suitable for our needs. We will be discussing this situation again at our February meetings.
• We have received several individual monetary donations in the spirit of Christmas giving and in memoriam for recently deceased former members or relatives of current members.
• Volunteer news – We have updated our volunteer directory.
• Store news – Holiday sales were very strong this year. One of our local boy scout troops helped assemble Christmas trees for us to display in the store. It was appreciated for the labor and the community spirit. Many of our customers appreciated the sale of winter coats at $1.00 each. I’m sure this drew in extra customers who bought more than just coats.
• Food Pantry report – Our clients have appreciated the continuing availability of eggs donated regularly by Rose Acre farms. We also received a sizable donation of ground beef from a local source.
• Facilities report – Parking and trash pick-up were discussed at length. We hire a pick-up service to empty a large trash container once a week. Unfortunately, the day they are available in our area is Tuesday. Tuesday is also our busiest day in the store and warehouse causing some people to park too close to the trash container. We have not as yet come up with a good plan either to relocate the container or to provide more parking for a one day overflow.
• Spanish-speaking customers are increasing. We recently received the help of a bilingual customer who met with some of our cashiers and members to teach us some useful Spanish phrases, such as hello, good day, please, thank you and would you please move your car.
• Neighbors-in-need – A young woman who recently became homeless was being helped by our local homeless shelter to obtain employment. She needed appropriate clothing for an interview, and we were able to help with that. During our time together we learned that she had no family. Both parents were deceased, and she felt very alone in the world. We assured her of our continuing support as needed.

Activity Summary:

• Completed Listening Session January 8, 2025, and submitted report to National on January 28, 2025.
• Investigating 40 Days for 40 Beds Special Collection to be an IU student initiative with Bridget Dolan taking the lead
• Received a $25,000 Grant from the Sacred Heart Fund to be used for Rent and Utility Assistance and December fundraising was also generous
• We have been fortunate to be recipients of used queen beds, couches and chairs from a local hotel as they are renovating and replacing much of their furniture
• We are continuing planning our summer event, An Afternoon in the Park

Those we serve: (next page)

Marilyn reported that the conference continues to see significant levels of charitable assistance provided to neighbors-in-need.  In December and January, we provided over 107 hours of Vincentian service (primarily in-person visits) and over 669 miles travelled to provide that service.  This service affected 73 family households (132 adults and 26 children) in our community.   Our financial support for neighbors-in-need during this period, primarily for rent assistance and utilities, totaled over $22,640 with additional in-kind assistance over $1994.   This is made possible by the generous support of the parish including a very generous 5th Sunday collection and the additional funds provided by the Parish. Marilyn noted that because of businesses/industry having holiday shutdowns where employees do not receive pay is common, there was more hardship evidenced around the holidays.

For systemic change, we are continuing to meet monthly with the graduates of Changing Lives Forever.   Upcoming sessions will be focused on financial literacy. St Vincent de Paul USA is offering on-line advocacy training for working with lawmakers.   Jim is currently enrolled in the e-learning sessions and these sessions will be offered to other Vincentian leaders in 2025.

We have two new members from our parish that are joining our conference.  One of the members is involved with Mission Columbus, an outreach ministry for home repairs in our community; this is an area of potential collaboration for our conference in Bartholomew County.

As part of our development meetings for conference members, we are using Serving in Hope, Module VI that covers the topic of ‘Our Conference’.   This is part of our emphasis on continued spiritual growth as part of SVdP.

• We completed and submitted the results of our Listening Session exercise. Since many of our volunteers have little contact with SVDP USA, we received more reflections relative to our local operation than the national scene.  We will be using some of those reflections as agenda items in future board meetings as helpful to our own growth.
• We were able to successfully complete our Christmas outreach to the community.  412 children from 144 families received their requested gifts valued at $25 to $30.  Distribution was hosted by the Presbyterian Fellowship on December 14.  There was generous support from the community with more than a dozen organizations and faith communities taking “leaves” which contained the child’s age, color preference, suggested gift.  Discussions are underway to revisit the Brown County/Nashville response for next year with the option being for an integrated community response with the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program. This type of program is often coordinated by the United Way in some communities but since we do not have a United Way staff in Brown County, SVDP and the Salvation Army will look to replicate the model.
• On December 18, St. Vincent volunteers hosted an event for grandparents at the CYO Camp for 56 grandparents. Each guest was offered a variety of gifts (hats and gloves for children, games and puzzles to share with their grandchildren, and household items such as small appliances, potholders, wash cloths and Christmas mugs. Music was provided and Bingo was played to win other gifts. The grandparents were overwhelmed and some tearfully thanked SVDP for celebrating their role as grandparents.  One grandparent said this was the first Christmas party she had ever attended in her life.
• We were blessed with favorable weather for both our Christmas events and food distributions in November and December.
• January’s weather was more of a challenge, and we were forced to close for two of our normal distribution days and opened one day to the challenges of bitter cold. The county worked hard to get roads open but even after a week there were some roads that had not yet been plowed.
• Our SVDP Freightliner truck was able to come to rescue during one of the weather challenges as Hoosier Hills Food Bank was unable to make its normal deliveries to Brown County for the food pantries.  Pastor Dupree and Deacon Jason from The Pentecostals made the trip to Hoosier Hills in Bloomington and picked up the County’s food distribution and delivered it to each of the pantries and Mother’s Cupboard, our Soup Kitchen.  Our work as an ecumenical conference brings resilience to our community.
• We ended the calendar year with a generous amount of outpouring of donations both for our Christmas programs as well as donations for our “Restock our Pantry” campaign. This will give us 5-6 months of breathing room as we continue to look for ways to keep up with the high cost of food and our increasing numbers.  We continue to spend at least $5000 per month for the purchase food over and above the donations we receive and the food we can secure from Hoosier Hills and Midwest Food Bank.
• We offered $10 gift Walmart gift cards (two to large families) to all of our families in November and December instead of trying to purchase tons of turkeys and hams as we have done in the past.  In 2023, we spent nearly $9000 on turkeys and hams.  For 2024, we offered the Walmart gift cards so families could purchase their own turkey, ham or fresh produce.  An individual family is typically eligible for a discount on their turkey purchase, but we are unable to avail ourselves of these discounts with our bulk purchases.  We purchased 600 $10 Walmart gift cards ($6000) for distribution.  The families were very pleased with these arrangements.  Gift cards were restricted to the purchase of meat and/or fresh produce.  Not having to manage the sheer physical challenge of purchasing and transporting the large volume of meat was a relief to our volunteers as well.

A link to our year in review on our website:
https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/0ed85648-9f73-4baa-bba6-3c89deafdd5a/downloads/f9a363d4-e1e4-416e-ada7-95047af4153a/2024%20A%20Year%20in%20Review.pdf?ver=1737754161537

SVdP Shelby County conference report for February 2025

• 164 individual requests for help since October with distribution in dollar amounts:

• Serving in Hope training modules are still being covered at alternate meetings
• Members attended Mass at St. Vincent DePaul on feast of blessed Frederic Ozanam, prior to a business meeting, where Fr. Mike Keucher gave our conference a blessing.
• President of Good Shepherd (twinning conference) met with us to describe how they help families with new beds. We have duplicated their method for use in our conference.
• Have not completed background checks with Indy
• Have continued to meet with Love Inc, who is just starting their operation in Shelby County.
• Received a request from Laundry Love Shelby County to help with cost of providing service to those in need
• Chili cook-off fundraiser is Feb 8th
• “Secret Santa” provided Christmas gift to thrift store shoppers 2 weeks before Christmas