Catholic groups support people in need at Christmas

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Diocesan agencies Caritas, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (SVP) and the Prison Advice and Care Trust (Pact) were among the Catholic welfare charities supporting those in need at Christmas.

Before and after Christmas, the main focus of Caritas Salford was support for children and families affected by crisis and poverty and continued support for the homeless. In addition to distributing gifts to more than 350 children in Greater Manchester and Lancashire, it has received an increased number of applications for crisis grants for families in immediate need. Requests ranged from providing emergency assistance, to paying for utility costs due to the death of a relative, to providing replacement household items like stoves. “Rising household costs are hitting families with the lowest incomes and leaving them exposed and in crisis,” said Patrick O’Dowd, director of Caritas Salford. The tablet.

“Our work to support the homeless continued throughout Christmas and New Years, supported by Bishop John Arnold of Salford as he visited each of our projects,” he added.

The Christmas Day Outreach in Bury, supporting over 300 homeless or isolated people, received special recognition with several Caritas Salford volunteers interviewed live on BBC Radio Manchester throughout the morning, highlighting the importance of volunteers in the community. Longer term, said O’Dowd, “We remain concerned about the impact of the Covid Omicron variant and its particular impact on mental health and this, combined with the rise in prices of essential items and reductions in universal credit, 2022 will be a difficult year with more people pushed into the indignity of poverty.

During the month of December, the SVP Center in Leeds collected food donations “to make sure we are able to provide food to those in need during the holiday season”. Also, clothes for refugees and asylum seekers and toys for children in need. “We are overwhelmed by the donations that are pouring in as Christmas approaches,” the center said on Twitter.

The week before Christmas, the Mercy Hub – the outreach project of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Newcastle – participated in the ‘Love Christmas’ project, delivering 41 ‘bags of kindness’ to families in Newcastle, containing a Christmas card, decoration, chocolate bar and an Asda food voucher. The children received a Christmas present. Mercy Hub coordinator Jeremy Cain reported that “a vacation club was held during the first week of the school vacation that offered activities for parents and children to do together – ice skating was the main focus. most popular – as well as a hot meal. On the last day, he added, “we took two socially distanced coaches to visit the magnificent outdoor light show at Gibside, our local National Trust property.” Mary’s Place, “our homeless service,” also provided food and Christmas gifts for 20 people.

Volunteers with Caritas Salford.

On Christmas Day in London, the Farm Street Jesuit Church, home to the homeless services of Catholic churches in central London, hosted a lunch. “The atmosphere was festive and welcoming, with volunteers also providing live music and Christmas carols after a Christmas sit-down lunch for 16 guests,” said Jen Copestake, project manager. “Some of our guests live outside the local area and depend on transportation to get in,” she continued, “and one of them walked for three hours to be with us on Christmas Day.” She said The tablet that “we are seeing an increasing number of guests, including newly homeless people, at our weekly sit-down lunch service, which operates Wednesdays and Saturdays, and now we have 31 regular guests for our sit-down lunch service on Wednesday, a big jump compared to just a few months ago.

Father Dominic Robinson, SJ, Parish Priest of Farm Street and President of Westminster Justice and Peace, said that ‘the situation of restless sleep on the streets of London at Christmas shows how much this problem is not going away but is getting worse, but Fortunately, this goes hand in hand with the incredible generosity of volunteers and donors who want to put faith into action.

For the third year in a row, Caritas Westminster has organized its Advent Giving Calendar initiative: a calendar with suggested items that people can collect each day to donate to a local organization. food Bank or a food aid project in time to Christmas.

Many parishes and schools in the Diocese of Westminster have responded to Pope Francis’ call to “look beyond ourselves… and open up” to those in need during Advent. Some of the groups that participated donated the various items collected to their local food bank, including students from Caritas St Joseph’s Pastoral Center – a lifelong learning center for adults with developmental disabilities, which is part of Caritas Westminster.

Others have used the calendar to support their own food aid work, including St Gregory’s Catholic Science College in Harrow, which used the calendar as a way to supplement their school’s food bank stores, which supports families. within the school community. Additionally, some food aid projects chose to adapt the timeline to include specific items their particular project needed, including the Hitchin Food Pantry, a new community supermarket supported by Caritas Westminster, which allows its members to doing a weekly store for their family, while keeping the bill fixed and affordable.

Caritas Westminster organized Vinnie Packs in November and December, in partnership with SVP, offering winter essentials such as gloves, hats and socks, which were distributed to homeless and struggling people. About 900 Vinnie packs were made by schoolchildren. In the words of one student, “When we helped pack the Vinnie Packs, I felt like I was changing someone’s life; we knew these packs were small, but maybe they represented the world to one person. “

Just before Christmas Andy Keen-Downs, director of Pact, which is supported by the Catholic community in England and Wales, wrote on Twitter: “A BIG THANKS to the kind ‘elves’ who made it possible for moms and dads in jail sending gifts to their children this Christmas. Pact’s Operation Elf appeal called on donors to provide £ 10 gift cards that prisoners could then give to their children, and it reported that 1,300 children of prisoners received a gift from their parent in prison thanks to to the “great teamwork of Santa Claus”.

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