St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) was a French Catholic priest dedicated to serving the poor. He was captured by pirates and sold into slavery for a time, but became free again and started various charitable endeavors for galley slaves and the poor. He is considered the patron saint of charitable societies, and the charitable society in his name was started by students in Paris in 1833.
Learn more about the international organization and the Vancouver conference at St. Vincent de Paul.
For Gary Wright, leading the Vancouver conference of St. Vincent de Paul is all about personal connections.
He realized that when his simple urge to do somebody some good by putting in grunt work — making bread pickups and unpacking boxes, he figured — had him visiting with desperate people, hearing their stories, offering counseling and comfort as well as emergency food and cash.
“It’s life-changing,” said Wright, 60, whose rise through the ranks of volunteers will be complete on Jan. 1, when he takes over from Dick Lauer as executive director of Clark County’s largest individual food pantry. According to its most recent fiscal year statement, the Vancouver conference of St. Vincent de Paul, an international Catholic lay organization, gave out nearly $2.5 million in food, clothing, housewares, Christmas gifts — and grants of emergency cash for rent, utilities, transportation and more — between October 2012 and September 2013. Its warehouse at 2456 N.E. Stapleton Road is open five days a week, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Life-changing how? It’s all about serving needy people without hesitation or judgment.
“We don’t ask a lot of questions.
We are looking at the need,” said Wright. “It’s an adjustment for me and my heart. A lot of people pass through those doors with a lot of needs.”
Some of them are planning and striving for better. Some are doing the best they can, but they’re simply stuck — because of everything from disabilities to an economy that still isn’t generating many new jobs. And some haven’t a clue about anything beyond hand-to-mouth survival — and never will, thanks to disadvantages such as mental illness and hard-core addiction.
“A lot of them are people who come here for a long time,” said Lauer. “We get to know them. So many of them are never going to get out of where they’re at.”
“You sure learn a lot about people’s individual situations and their hardships,” said operations manager Sylvia Van. “Every day is something new. Sometimes you sit and pray with them or even cry with them.”
Much joy, little cash
Lauer started with St. Vincent de Paul as a volunteer in 1986. It was a small operation then, he said, which moved here and there over the years. Its first paid director wasn’t hired until 1988. Lauer took the job in 1996.
“I didn’t think I’d be doing this kind of work,” said Lauer, who labored for years in printing sales before his volunteerism with St. Vincent de Paul went from curious and occasional to passionate and constant. “I developed a feel for what we’re doing,” he said, and an appreciation for rewards like true friendship and belief in the mission, he said. “It’s a joy to come to work,” he said.
On the other hand, he discovered for himself — like Wright after him — just how huge poverty has grown underneath the radar, he said. Not long ago, he said, “you could drive around Vancouver and everything looked great. But you didn’t see what was really happening,” he said.
Poverty is much more widespread and obvious now, he said, and outfits like St. Vincent de Paul are feeling the pinch of federal cutbacks as well as the restructuring of the regional food bank system. The food itself sometimes runs down, and the pantry has to stretch its supplies to try to provide several days’ worth of food for hungry people. Like many local sister agencies, St. Vincent de Paul offers recipients one emergency food box per month, plus the chance to browse for free clothes once every two months.
That’s still more than folks who come for cash usually get. Emergency financial assistance for pressing needs such as rent and utilities is almost always a once-in-a-lifetime gift, Lauer said.
“We help less than 10 percent who call” for emergency rental or utility help, Lauer said. The organization’s fall 2013 newsletter says it typically gets nearly 200 calls for cash assistance each month.
“We can help 15 to 20 per month,” he said. “That’s the money we budgeted. We have to say no an awful lot. That’s when it gets hard.”
Few local agencies provide emergency cash assistance, he added. The Salvation Army in east Vancouver and the Interfaith Treasure House in Washougal are among them — and “they’re all out of money,” he said.
Church collections
About two-thirds of the approximate $300,000 annual budget of the Vancouver conference of St. Vincent de Paul comes directly from collection plates and envelopes at the four local Catholic churches that make up the conference: St. James, St. Joseph, Our Lady of Lourdes and Holy Redeemer. The Vancouver conference limits its services to people from that “southern section” of Clark County, Lauer said. Separate conferences in Brush Prairie and east county raise funds and provide services to their own local folks, he said.
Other than that, services are open to anyone. You don’t need to belong to a particular Catholic church, or be a Catholic at all, to apply for help. In fact, Lauer said, the vast majority of people the agency touches are not Catholic.
Most of the rest of the budget comes from individual donations by private people. “That’s very gratifying,” said Lauer.
There’s also a small federal grant that comes to Clark County agencies for a range of emergency services for poor people — it’s called the Emergency Food and Shelter Program — but that grant is broken into chunks and shared among several agencies when it gets here, Lauer said.
That leaves $24,000 in housing assistance — that is, mortgage, rent and utility help — for St. Vincent de Paul to distribute. The amount “goes down every year,” Lauer said, even while the need goes up. This year, he expects a 15 percent reduction, he said.
There are two-and-one-half paid staffers — the director, an operations manager and a part-time assistant — as well as a reliable group of about 85 volunteers at the Vancouver conference of St. Vincent de Paul, Lauer said.
Wright, who spent years selling forest products, said he wants to raise the agency’s profile and seek more partnerships with small businesses and others who can help. Meanwhile, Wright said, he just wants to study Lauer’s secrets for success. Lauer may be retiring as leader, but he won’t be permitted to disappear completely, Wright said.
“I have 85 new names to remember,” said Wright. “I like that aspect of this job.”
