Vinnies Winter Appeal 2024

‘Yours must be the work of love, of kindness; you must give your time, your talents, yourselves. The poor person is a unique person of God’s fashioning with an inalienable right to respect.’ Blessed Frédéric Ozanam founded the St Vincent de Paul Society

A staggering 1,600 people are being forced into homelessness every single month in Australia. [i] The most vulnerable people in our communities have been affected by the spiralling cost of living in the last few years. The lack of affordable housing and increased demand for rental properties are forcing more people into homelessness. Meeting basic needs such as food, water and a place to sleep can be the most important daily priority for people experiencing homelessness. It is your compassion and support that makes the work of St Vincent de Paul possible. Financial donations play a critical role in sustaining the Society. Donations to the Winter Appeal may be made by using the QR codes below.

Our parish conferences have had a long history with providing support to those in need and continue to do so. As St Vincent De Paul Society celebrates 170 years in Victoria, we take time to reflect on our parish conferences who have supported the community for many years. This week we read about the history of Deepdene and Balwyn Conference and how they have helped and continue to help those in need.

The Deepdene Conference was established on 11 September 1927 with a membership of nine volunteers. Today the Conference is one of the largest in Victoria with 38 members and associate members.

The foundation President, R.M. Fitzgerald of 18 Leonard Street Deepdene, served in this role until the mid-1940s when he was followed by John Smith who was President until the late 1950s. The Great Depression (1929 – 1939) did not spare Deepdene and the Conference was called upon frequently to provide assistance.

In the History of All Conferences In Victoria 1932, the principal works of the Conference were listed as: ‘visiting cases of distress and giving assistance; and endeavouring to bring careless or neglectful Catholics back to the Church with no great success in this direction as within our limited exuberance we have found that clients will accept relief and promise to attend to their religious duties but rarely keep their promises’.

Although the second of these two activities is no longer a role of the Conference, visiting needy families in their homes to provide assistance and support has always been and still is at the heart of the Society’s work.

On 13 January 1947 the Deepdene and Balwyn conferences were ‘aggregated’ – a term used to denote official recognition of a Conference by the Society’s Council General in Paris.

Source of income

Over the years, revenue to support the Conference’s activities has come from a variety of sources. These have included Button Day (which was held every October throughout Melbourne) where buttons were sold as a fund raiser and the proceeds came back proportionately to the sellers. In 1958 the Conference raised £57/8/6.

Other sources of income have been via the Poor Box (located in the churches) and ‘the collection’ which was money collected from the members present at Conference meetings (which no longer takes place).

Button Day was replaced with Poor Man’s Masses as they were known (later known as Masses for the Poor and more recently the Winter Appeal). Today the Winter and Christmas Appeals are the major funds raisers for the Conference with the latter raising $17,775 at Christmas 2023 through the generosity of Deepdene Balwyn parishioners and support of the priests of our parish. All of this money is used directly to support those in need.

In addition, the OLGC School community has supported the work of the Conference over many years by donating non-perishable food, blankets, and supermarket vouchers.

Women and the Society

From its early days, conferences were comprised either of men only or women only – none were mixed. In 1967 a mixed conference was trialled in Victoria which led to the Society Rule being amended in 1973 to allow for all men, all women or mixed conferences. Regional Council Minutes of the meeting held on 13 November 1974 noted mens’, womens’, mixed and youth conferences were all deemed acceptable with the approval of the Parish Priest.

The Conference’s first female members were recorded as Pat McNamara, Mary Doyle, and Marjorie Finn. Pat became the first female president in 1994. Lillian Giuliani followed in her footsteps in 1996.

Today the Conference has 21 women and 17 men as members or associate members.

Beyond Deepdene and Balwyn

Ozanam House – In 1953 the Society established Ozanam House, a night shelter for homeless men, in North Melbourne. Accommodation was provided on a nightly basis with a hot meal and a shower. Deepdene-Balwyn Conference members were rostered to assist on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis for the next 40 years. The roster system ceased in the 1990s as a new approach to assisting homeless services was introduced.

St Mary’s House of Welcome – In the late 1960s the Conference began supporting the Daughters of Charity at St Mary’s House of Welcome in Fitzroy. They also assisted with home visits and food vouchers to those in need in Fitzroy, Richmond, Abbotsford and Collingwood.

Retail Centres of Charity (renamed Vinnies Stores in 2014) – The Hawthorn Centre opened for business in 1972 in a leased property on the corner of Auburn Road and Leslie Street, Hawthorn. The Society purchased the freehold in 1985. This was followed by the establishment of the East Kew Centre in High Street in 1992. These Centres have provided a continuous source of funds for the Society’s work (as well as provide goods to those in need at no cost via Vinnies cards that Conference members provide to those they visit). The Centres have relied on volunteers from our Conference to staff the Centres and assist with a variety of Centre activities such as sorting donations and ‘tagging’ electrical goods, to name a few.

The Bread Run – A proposal for a bread run, collecting and distributing leftover bread products from Bakers Delight, was first discussed in March 1991 and was implemented shortly afterwards. Members of the Conference collected the fresh bread products remaining at the end of each day and distributed these to families throughout Hawthorn, Kew, Deepdene and Balwyn and to Prague House and the Carmelite Monastery. After 25 years, this work ceased in 2015 due to administrative difficulties imposed by bread suppliers.

Overseas Commitments through twinning and Assist-a-Student

Twinning – Following a Pan Asian Conference in Sydney in 1968 the Society in Australia decided to assist conferences in Third World countries which became known as the Twinning Scheme. Each Conference in Victoria then became twinned with at least one other Conference in an Asian country. This required small quarterly financial contributions, additional special grants at Easter and Christmas, and the exchanges of letters and remembrances in prayer. The Conference continues with this support today and currently supports 10 twin conferences in India, the Philippines and Myanmar.

Assist-a-Student – The Conference has supported the Society’s Assist-a-Student (AAS) Program since its inception in 1964. The Program provides funding which contributes to meeting the educational needs of students in partner countries. The students who receive educational support under the AAS Program are selected from families in need by local St VdeP members in partner countries.

The focus of Conference activity today

Most of the work of Conference volunteers is in conducting home visits to those who request assistance via the StVdeP Call Centre or in volunteering at Vinnies Centres or the Vinnies Soup Vans.

In regard to home visits, our members visit in pairs to meet with people in our local Deepdene / Balwyn area and in North Melbourne and Collingwood to listen, support, and assess their needs. Assistance is provided via either supermarket vouchers for food, Vinnies cards for clothes and household goods, or furniture and bedding or a combination of these. Over the 12 months to 31/12/23, our Deepdene Balwyn members conducted 414 home visits to those who requested assistance.

Our Conferences are always looking for new members to assist in our work. If you are interested in joining or finding out more about the work, please contact the Conference President(s) – details can be obtained from the Parish Office.

Michael Ryan

President

Deepdene Balwyn Conference

Donations may be made direct to your applicable Parish Conference by visiting their donation page using the link or QR code below.

Camberwell Conference