North District Report: December 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.

In addition to continuing to respond to individual and family requests for assistance, our Conference held our annual Kitchen Shower early this month, in which we collected at St. Luke parish and delivered to the Distribution Center two car loads of kitchen items such as plates, flatware, cup and glasses, pots and pans, and small appliances. We also participated in the 40 days for 40 beds campaign, in which we ended up collecting $12,089 from our parishioners during Lent, all of which was sent to the Council finance office.

We had a very successful 40 Beds during 40 days of Lent. We have been having wonderful discussions during the Spiritual component of the SVDP meeting.

St Joan of Arc has been able to donate to the Council over the past 3 months $2000 for beds, $1000 to the bike program, $1000 to 30th street food pantry & $1000 to BL Place Food Pantry.

We prepared and delivered 20 Easter food baskets to neighbors in need within the STA boundaries on Palm Sunday. Baskets included food items and grocery gift cards.

STA supported the Indy Council 40 days for 40 beds program with contributions.

$3,503.90 was spent for grocery gift cards, rent, gas and electric payments in March and April. After a lot of requests for assistance in January and February, new requests have slowed down a bit.

A lenten appeal for SVdP donations at STA brought in close to $7,000.00 in March and April.

Our conference has begun planning to distribute bags to collect food for the Boulevard Place Pantry to increase our parish food donations. We plan to do something similar to the IHM food collection program. Hope to implement this summer or early fall.

My conference members who attended the Ozanam orientation report home visitors should have identification cards. None of us have them. How can we obtain them? Also, is Serveware fixed? The last time I spoke with Mary Giles she told me to continue sending my referrals to neighbor services until further notice.

• 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.

Spirituality – We’ve had much to be thankful for and pray for as we reach midyear in 2025. The generosity of North District conferences and the parish continue to inspire us to keep moving forward doing the work we are called to do. A conference retreat in June will help us focus on our spirituality that is based in the Vincentian charisms along with learning about the heritage of Vincentians.

Friendship – The essence of the friendship we are developing as a group, stems from our parish. We are continuing the legacy of St. Andrew in our neighborhood. Pulpit talks to involve parishioners in our mission have been for fundraisers and membership, Council’s 40 Beds during Lenten season, 5th Sunday Bake Sales. numerous bulletin notifications about SVDP updates and messages from Council.

Service – In the past 3 months we have completed 55 Home Visits and assisted with 30 utility requests. We have seen an increase in families that need assistance with other needs: rent, food, clothing, baby needs, adult personal needs, down payments, auto needs, housing repairs. All of these have been referred to other agencies.

Changing Lives Forever: Our conference began our program at the end of March with a projected graduation date of July 14. We have been inspired by the hard work of our cohort. Nine investigators motivated to complete the work, collaborating on projects and enjoying each other’s spirits and lives that they bring to the group. Special thanks to the other cohort leaderships for assisting us with all the planning that goes into beginning a new cohort at St. Andrew with St. Pius.

No report submitted.