The conference is currently seeking volunteers willing to go out and provide face-to-face support to those in need.
Moorestown residents in need will soon have a new place to turn for help. The St. Vincent de Paul Conference of Moorestown will be serving the community as soon as February.
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is a national, nonprofit, Catholic organization whose goal is offer aid to those in need. John Kallelis, president of the Moorestown conference, has volunteered with Medford’s St. Mary of the Lakes Conference for the last 20 years. He said members of the St. Mary’s conference asked him to help bring a conference to Moorestown, and Kallelis, a Moorestown resident, has spent the last several weeks getting the word out that St. Vincent de Paul has come to town.
“We spoke at masses, we spoke at the Moorestown Ministerium and we asked for volunteers,” Kallelis said.
According to the National Council’s mission statement, the Society “leads women and men to join together to grow spiritually by offering person-to-person service to those who are needy and suffering in the tradition of its founder, Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, and patron, St. Vincent de Paul.” In the United States, the society has around 100,000 volunteers, and in 2015, the society provided nearly $1 billion in aid.
To date, Kallelis has been visiting local churches to recruit volunteers. He said once the volunteers are trained, the conference will open a hotline for all the churches in Moorestown to utilize, so anyone in need who walks into a Moorestown church can be referred to the hotline. In turn, a St. Vincent volunteer will schedule a time to visit with the person.
Kallelis said the society’s goal is to provide in-person, face-to-face support to those in need, and there’s a wide array of scenarios to which the society is willing to lend its aid. He said people may need financial help with rent, utilities or auto insurance, and the conference’s goal is to provide financial assistance, direct them to the proper agency or help them to create a plan.
He said for instance, someone may call the hotline and say he or she is behind on their electricity bill and in need of some help. From there, the volunteer on the other end of the line would schedule a home visit. In pairs, St. Vincent volunteers visit with those in need and try to get a sense of their situation. Kalellis said they’ll take a look at his or her financial situation and call the electricity company to verify the person is behind.
If they find the person is truly in need, the volunteers will present their case to the conference board requesting the individual’s electricity bill be paid. Based on that presentation, the board will either accept or deny the request for funding.
Kallelis said the volunteers’ response to hotline calls varies from case to case, but it’s all about providing the best help for the situation. He said if they receive a call that a person is in need of food, they would help to augment the local food pantries’ work by bringing the person gift cards and freshly made dishes. He said they would also help him or her apply for food stamps.
Through his own volunteer work, Kallelis has provided budget counseling for those seeking help. He said he would walk guests — the term the society uses to refer to those seeking help — through a list of their income and expense categories and help them to determine areas where they could improve. He said he would also help guests develop weekly and monthly budgets.
Volunteers receive training through the national nonprofit. Kallelis said volunteers are walked through what St. Vincent de Paul is, and the organization does not take any of the funding from the donations it receives. He said volunteers are informed how to perform a home visit and what they should be looking for to assess whether a person is in need.
To date, around 20 Moorestown residents have signed up to volunteer with the Moorestown conference. In the next four to six weeks, volunteers will partner with local conferences in Mt. Holly, Mt. Laurel and Maple Shade to go out and learn how to conduct home visits.
Kallelis said the Moorestown conference is still seeking volunteers. Anyone interested in getting involved can email [email protected].
