FURNITURE MINISTRY OF ST. GREGORY THE GREAT
The furniture ministry at St. Gregory the Great, Williamsville, NY started with a simple visit to
a client in 2007.. The visit was a bit different than most – we brought several bags of food to a small Church on the East side of Buffalo for distribution to some of the members of the Church. Their
needs as well as their gratitude were exceptional.
We spoke to the pastor afterwards and heard first hand about his people's needs – food,
furniture, and appliances.
On the way back to St. Greg's we shared our feelings of gratitude for our economic stations
in life. We also discussed our Vincentian duty to help those who were less fortunate – especially
in the inner city of Buffalo. We come from a big,wealthy, generous suburban parish and we
were sure that our parishoners would help us bring assistance to the city's poor.
Not long after our visit to the inner city the Buffalo Council of St. Vincent dePaul held their annual
meeting. A fellow Vincentian explained the situation in the city. Most, if not all, of our conferences
which had been very active in the previous decades were either closed or closing – just as
their parishes were. The rapidly increasing requests for assistance in the inner city were
overwhelming the handful of Vincentians left to answer the call.
One of those few offered a solution. He volunteered to lead a new conference headquartered
in the Buffalo Council offices on Main St. Suburban and active city conferences were
invited to send members to the bi-weekly meetings and share in the many client referrals
provided through calls to our Main St. secretaries.
At St. Gregory's we decided to take turns attending the “Ozanam” – now “Bishop Timon” –
conference meetings and to bring the referrals back to our membership so that we could
visit clients in their homes. At first, we had about seven members rotate through Timon's
meetings but have since increased to twelve or so now.
Our opportunities to visit the poor became very numerous and as word of our work spread
throughout the parish, we experienced great increases in our collection of food, clothes,
and money. The good people of St. Gregory's were coming through!
Since we already had a food pantry, we have been able to bring groceries to our clients
when needed. However, two glaring needs became obvious to us as we continued our
visits. A huge number of clients were in need of furniture, refrigerators, and stoves.
The Buffalo Council encouraged us to write purchase vouchers for these items so that clients
could buy them in the SVDP store on Main St. However, the demand for these items
greatly exceeded the supply. We grew frustrated at the inability of our clients to use the vouchers
that we wrote for them and started to discuss what could be done about the situation.
It was obvious to us that a great supply of used furniture and appliances was at our
fingertips within our own parish. It was also clear that the need for these items in the
city was growing every day. How could we get the used furniture and appliances to those
in need? We needed a truck and we needed storage space – lots of it. We figured that if
we could pick up used goods from our parishoners and store them that the Buffalo Council
trucks could pick them up and get them back to the Main St. store.
Our pastor has been a huge supporter of SVDP since his arrival in 2006. Late in 2009 father
asked us to move our food pantry because he needed the space for two other parish projects.
He wondered if we would like to re-locate into the old caretaker's house on the parish
grounds – the “white house” – where the maintenance department was headquartered as they
moved into a new building.
The white house had plenty of room for our food pantry and also an attached 2-1/2 car
garage! Now we had storage! We moved our food pantry into the white house in August of 2010.
Now, we needed a truck. As we began to brainstorm about a method to raise the necessary funds,
we were shocked to hear in the Fall of 2010 that an anonymous donor had provided the majority
of the funds that we needed. During Christmas week of that year, one of our members
negotiated the purchase of a used Ryder truck from a local dealer and we had our vehicle!
Practical steps were then taken – waiver forms for the drivers ( all Vincentians at St. Greg's),
an insurance policy, and emergency equipment for the truck. A lesson in safe moving
techniques was provided by a local mover.
Our furniture chairman completed a schedule whereby teams of two or three men (and
sometimes their sons) would rotate furniture pick-ups. Each team would be on duty about
once every 2 months. We would publish an announcement in the parish bulletin
the week before a scheduled pick up and invite fellow parishoners to call our paish
voice mail and leave word that they had items available.
Our first official pick up occurred in May of 2011 and we filled our truck to capacity.
Since that time, we have repeated parish pick ups about every 2 weeks and delivered the
used items to the SVDP store on Main St. We are delighted to hear that store sales have increased
due to greater inventory of merchandise available. More people in need have been
supplied with furniture and/or appliances. We can now give purchase vouchers to our clients
with much more confidence that their needs will be met.
Thanks to the support of our pastor, of the Buffalo Council of SVDP, our anonymous donor
and, of course, divine guidance, we were able to get this ministry going. With the hard work of my fellow Vincentians and the generosity of the parishoners of St. Greg's – if it be God's will –
we plan to continue it. Thank you to all for your help.
Michael Heins, President
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