Grantmaking that Gets Things Done
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul
We get asked occasionally by clients about the value of a site visit. Is it worth the time and effort to sit down and talk face to face with leaders of nonprofits you either support or are considering for support? Is it worth the drive/flight/cost to check out a facility? Yes, yes, by all means, yes! Let me share a story about one of our recent visits. It took an afternoon. But, I guarantee you, we know the leaders better than ever, understand the mission better than ever, and appreciate the needs more than ever.
One sunny but cool Phoenix day in February, we visited a special place. It’s special because of the people who work and volunteer there. It’s special because of what they accomplish. We felt it the moment we walked through the front door, welcomed by a volunteer with a huge smile and an offer of a bottle of water. (This contrasted dramatically with a shall-remain-nameless nonprofit we visited the next day with a greeting that resembled a grunt and a finger point. Let’s just say, that was the highlight of an equally informative visit, albeit with a different end result.)
St. Vincent de Paul is a nonprofit working to feed, house, clothe, and heal the neediest among us, supported by one of Hoplin Jackson’s clients. Rather than tell us about their work, they showed us.
First on the tour was a stop in the food warehouse chock full to the ceiling of banana boxes. “Are all these boxes actually filled with bananas?” I asked rather sheepishly. Turns out, banana boxes are sturdy and have covers with peepholes so you can see what’s packed inside. Those thousands of banana boxes were filled with toiletries, and canned goods, and cereal, and crayons, and just about any need you can imagine. After being sorted here with the help of the National Guard and volunteers who operate forklifts and sort the items, these food boxes are distributed to thousands of hungry families throughout the area at local churches and distribution centers. In 2020, they distributed 143,000 food boxes to families. Last month alone (February), more than 403,000 pounds of food flowed through here.
But that’s not all. In SVdP’s commercial kitchen, volunteers prepared and served 2.8 million meals to families in 2020. 2.8 million. Let that sink in.
Hundreds of homeless people live in SVdP’s shelter—a place they can stay until they get back on their feet. Further, SVdP provided clothing and hygiene services (showers, etc.) to those living on the streets. SVdP offers on-site medical treatments to the uninsured for nearly every affliction, staffed by doctors and surgeons who donate their time. Prior to this clinic, the homeless and most destitute showed up at an emergency room, got treated for their most pressing ailment, and left with a short-term prescription. In the case of a diabetic needing insulin, this is hardly “treatment,” and the person likely would be a repeat visitor at the ER in a few short weeks when the insulin ran out. At St. Vincent de Paul, they provide quality, free, continuous, holistic care. If a person comes in with diabetes and a problem with his foot, he’ll see a diabetic specialist and a podiatrist within days. This clinic frees emergency room and hospital resources to care for acute, emergent needs. The SVdP clinic saw more than 11,000 visits in 2020.
As reported in the Catholic Sun, “Francis Richardson shows off his new smile at St. Vincent de Paul’s adult dental clinic Feb. 26 while showing a photo of himself when the only teeth he had were made of paper.”
One of the most startling moments on our visit to this special place was a walk down the hallway of the dentistry clinic. Photos lining the walls showed those living on the streets whose rotted, decayed, missing teeth made me want to look away and brought tears to my eyes. “How tragic,” I thought as I pushed away that lump in my throat. It turns out, just as I’m embarrassed to admit I turned away, employers, too, judge a book by its cover. So do prospective girlfriends or boyfriends. SVdP knows this, and volunteer dentists give hope through hours and hours of free surgeries and implants and other fixes. A fixed smile that leads to a job and a relationship restores dignity. The dentist who described this process to us knew every patient’s name. Remembered every single sad life story and the positive changes that came with fixing a smile.
Our visit could have ended right then. I would have been sold on these volunteer angels. But it only got better once we had the chance to talk openly about SVdP’s work. It was in sitting down, face-to-face, that the leaders of SVdP had the courage to say, “Our donors are like family. Not every day is a great one. We need to be honest about that.” We talked about their shortcomings (there weren’t many!). They didn’t try to cover them up…to explain them away. They owned up to them. How refreshing. My, how trust was built in that moment.
SVdP’s leadership is inspiring, and their work is humbling. But I haven’t even shared the half of it. This is the first organization that I’ve known to have both a mammoth mission to serve the needy with a distinctive and equally important mission to nourish the hearts of those who volunteer for the needy. In other words, they value volunteerism but not just because food boxes get loaded on forklifts and cavities get filled by free labor (they logged 204,000 volunteer hours in 2020). Leverage aside, SVdP realizes how volunteerism strengthens faith.
SVdP cherishes the role they play in giving people opportunities to connect their hearts and souls to something bigger. Through service, volunteers can live out their faith. Through service, many volunteers find faith. And at SVdP, they nurture those connections. Wow.
SVdP’s Arizona effort began 100 years ago by a group of five young Catholic men. Today, on SVdP’s wall in the entry, while we waited for the leaders to show us around, a mural told their story better than we ever could:
We are the society of Friday night pizza and Monday morning mercy….of houses turned into homes and second hand stuff into second chances, of clothes to inspire our bodies’ wish to be beautiful and souls showered with compliments and pain addressed with attention, of dignity delivered to the needy door and smiles volunteered and boxes filled with food and a promise for the future, of a roof where you can hear the footsteps of angels and a pillow that says happily ever after….and of being a server and deserving that privilege….and making sure that no one is left alone without a prayer or a friend, of making each other feel rich, lucky, and alive.
They say seeing is believing. Reading a grant application and perusing a website never would have conveyed the significance of how SVdP’s work both changes and saves lives—among those served and those who serve. The visit was pivotal in our understanding. We can be confident in knowing that SVdP is the cream of the crop. Bananas and all.
