By Paul Ainslie, President, SVdP Indy
Our volunteers and staff are currently preparing our annual Impact Report. The Impact Report summarizes our fiscal year (Oct 1, 2022 – Sept 30, 2023) work in support of our neighbors in need. For this new report, we are including reported numbers for all 57 Conferences and 15 Special Works. The need among our neighbors continues to grow, and we are seeing many new shoppers at our five pantries and many needing Home Visits. Over the past fiscal year, we’ve helped 282,000 households across the Council region, with a value of goods and services exceeding $26M.
Shopping at the Indianapolis 30th Street Food Pantry and Boulevard Place Food Pantry continues to increase significantly. Over 15,000 new shoppers came to the pantries last year, and we served over 27,000 unique households—with most households shopping one or two times each month, for a total of nearly 164,000 Pantry shopping visits and home deliveries. Additionally, we delivered food valued at over $22M to our neighbors in need. Pantries outside of the Indy area in Brazil, Clarksville and Greenville have also worked hard to meet increased demand.
Our Conference members helped over 100,000 households across the Council region. Conference members made more than 21,000 home and in-person visits, helping over 57,000 people last year. In the process, our members drove over 260,000 miles—more than the distance to the moon! Further, Conference service hours from our 7,000+ members and volunteers totaled over 239,000 hours.
Our ministries serving the unsheltered with food, clothing, personal hygiene items and bicycles helped over 8,000 individuals struggling with life on the streets. The value of these goods and services was over $350,000. And with the opening of our Love Your Neighbor Center, we now have a permanent presence in service to the unsheltered.
Download the report to learn more.
These are lots of numbers, and the numbers do matter. But at the core of our work is the one-to-one help we give. A home visit. A home delivery. A smile in a food pantry. A bed for a child sleeping on the floor. A home for the homeless. These are the services championed by St. Vincent de Paul 375 years ago and put into universal practice by Frederic Ozanam and his colleagues at the Society’s founding in 1833. We have a long tradition of meeting those in need where they are and offering hope for a better future.
Our volunteers are the heart and soul of the work we do. Thank you for all your hard work, and may God bless.
