Working, Praying, and Living in the Spirit of Vincent DePaul

DECEMBER 2005

Each year, the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers enter into a covenant with one another. Throughout the month of September, they discuss how they will work, pray, and live in the spirit of Vincent. We ask them to write their covenant in its final form by September 27th, the feast of St. Vincent DePaul. Please take a moment to read the covenant of the 2005-2006 Gateway Vincentian Volunteers.

of 2005-2006 to answer the call of service and dedicate ourselves to working, living, and praying in the spirit of St. Vincent DePaul. We will strive to grow individually and as a community, to serve humbly and with compassion, to recognize our imperfections, and to see beyond ourselves towards the needs and good of others.

THANK YOU!

The Gateway Vincentian Volunteers program is grateful to our donors who help us in so many ways—by making financial contributions as well as donations of time and talent. In this issue, we recognize those who have made monetary contributions since our last newsletter in September, 2005. Your generosity helps make this program possible. We are so grateful to each and every one of you!

  • Amelia and Lawrence Berra

  • Mary Ann and John Capellupo

  • Fr. Martin Culligan, C.M.

  • Phil Delano and Mary Engelbreit

  • Nancy and Charles Demarest

  • Jo Ellen and Donald Edelen

  • Scott Kelly

  • Martha Lane

  • Christy Leming

  • Marian and Kenneth Lemp

  • Suzan and Thomas Ochocinski

  • Fr. Henry Piacitelli, C.M.

  • Myla and Kenneth Rak

  • Fr. Robert Rhinehart, C.M.

  • Fr. John Richardson, C.M.

  • Mary Lou and Bill Schicker

  • Fr. Edward Sullivan, C.M.

  • Sue and Tony Tumminia

  • Fr. Paul Sisul, C.M.

  • Joan and John Vatterott

  • Joan and Gerald Wentzel

  • Grace Whalen

  • Fr. Robert Zimney, C.M.

If we have inadvertently left your name off our donor list, please accept our sincere apology AND let us know!
And a GREAT BIG THANKS to the Knights of Columbus—Council 12323 of St. Catherine Laboure Parish for their gift of paying the personal stipend for one volunteer for the entire year! We have been grateful to you for the past two years, and we are grateful to you again this year. Your generosity and support of the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers program is much appreciated!

And another GREAT BIG THANKS to Ted and Penny Fiedler, who underwrote a large portion of the expenses of the Second Annual GVV Golf Tournament. Thank you for your generosity and devotion to the GVV program!

An Education of Sorts

by Clare Lassiter

Clare works at Places for People, an organization that serves people with mental illnesses. Clare’s assignment is in the Club, which is a day center.

Each morning as I walk into the CLUB, I get one of two responses from clients. One is “Clare, you’re right on time,” and the other is “Clare, you’re late. I have been looking for you everywhere.”

These responses come from two beloved clients. The first response comes from a client that I have befriended in the past three months. The friendship began when I pawned off a candy corn soda to the client because he buys a caffeine free Pepsi every Tuesday and Thursday morning.

The second response comes from another client who has welcomed me into the CLUB. I am the new kid, and therefore I can be put through some “hazing.” When I first arrived, I needed to know the layout of the CLUB, and he was gracious enough to help me. One form of “hazing” was telling me that I was late every morning. Even though I kept telling him my hours, he still insisted that I was late. I later understood that he was letting me become part of the family in the CLUB. I was becoming part of the familiar environment that is the CLUB. The hazing has stopped because I am now part of the gang in the CLUB.

With this year of service at Places for People, I have already begun to undergo a conversion. In Vincentian spirituality, there are three conversions. Each conversion builds upon and deepens the one before. These conversions bring about an inner change and transformation.

The first conversion is to see Jesus in the poor. We, as human beings, are to meet and discover the face of Jesus in the poor, the disenfranchised, the rejected, and the forgotten. The second conversion is recognizing our own poverty. We tend to put on superficial fronts that allow us to be perceived as strong and powerful. However, we are not different from the woman who chooses between feeding her children and buying medicine. We discover our own poverty when we work with and serve the poor. The final conversion is sharing with the poor. In its very nature, the word share indicates that there is both giving and receiving involved. The poor have much to give and much to offer. This then invites us to open our hearts to
receive from the poor even as we give.

The conversion that I am slowly undergoing is really derived from the third conversion. I am learning a lot from my clients. One of my clients always says that I am receiving an “education of sorts.” My informal education is learning how to interact with persons with a mental illness, an addiction, or both. I realize that this is a relatively easy thing to do. The way that I interact with a person who is diagnosed with a mental illness, an addiction, or both is to treat him or her like a friend that I have not seen in a long time. It is very simple to ask how their day is or what they did over the weekend. Every morning, I look forward to talking with my friends at the CLUB.

I have also learned to always give of myself. In the CLUB, everyone is family. One of my clients calls me “sis,” and another calls another staff member “mom.” There is a sense of love and support that exists within our family at the CLUB. If someone from our family has not shown up for days, clients worry and inquire where this person has been. If someone is having a hard time with recovery, other clients give hope and encouragement that is more powerful than a staff member doing the same thing.

We celebrate successes in every way. Just recently, one of our clients reached the milestone of sixty-one days sobriety. This is a great achievement. Also, everyone helps each other without asking for anything in return. There is no quid pro quo at work at the CLUB. Everyone helps out in his or her own way.

A community can exist anywhere that one is present. Community can be with those with whom one lives or with those that one comes into contact with everyday. I am part of two communities. One is with my fellow volunteers, and the other is with my “family” at the CLUB. I am giving myself to this community every time I walk through the doors at the CLUB. I receive love and kindness in return.

Blessed by Differences

by Briana Colton

I have never really been the type of person who follows the crowd. However, when it came to post-graduation plans, I decided to join the ranks of Marquette alumni who were giving a year of their lives to service. It just seemed to be the only option in my mind and heart. I had never studied abroad, and I felt that I had not developed enough of my individuality to start a career, especially when I didn’t know what kind of career I wanted to start. I ended up in St. Louis because God had chosen to speak through my senior year roommate, who had visited GVV during her Spring Break service trip. When my initial intentions of going to Chicago fell through, Stephanie’s voice saying, “Check it out, I think you would fit in down there,” were all I needed to change the whole course of my post-graduate plans in the span of one week.

Throughout the whole summer I was excited about starting a new phase of my life. I had talked with Jim, Geri, and my supervisors Pat and Maureen on the phone, but I still didn’t really know what to expect. Initially I had expected to live and serve with three other girls, in a community that also housed Vincentian priests and brothers. It would be a year of simplicity (living on $100 a month seemed to be a lot easier for ME to fathom than those who heard my plans), service, spirituality, and hopefully friendship and life-shaping experiences. By the end of Orientation Week, we were expecting two more roommates, and by the end of the first month, we were each in our own way trying to live simply, develop spiritually, and make friends.

We come from all over the country, and we serve in very different ways. We have different living and spending styles, different ideas about fun, different spiritualities, and different approaches to sharing and growing in those spiritualities. We have different talents and gifts, but we all have come together to make this year of service a year of self-exploration and growth. We have 4 Catholics, one Lutheran, and one Protestant-turning-Catholic. We have a graphic designer, an artist, a photographer, a videographer/designer, a pianist, and a singer. We have extroverts, introverts, feelings people, and logical and reason-based people. We have those who like to plan and organize and clean; and we have those who thrive in the messiness, unpredictability, and spontaneity of life. We are an extremely balanced group!

Despite these differences, I feel blessed in this community. I am also blessed in my work. I am only four months into my year, and I have had some wonderful experiences. I work at two sites, St. Vincent DePaul Parish and St. Frances Cabrini Academy. Besides developing strong friendships with my supervisors, I am also comfortable with the people I encounter each day. I can talk to homeless guys on the occasions I see them at the sandwich window or meals. I am learning the resources to help them find housing, food, clothing, and job referrals, but there are still mountains left to learn.

I am MUCH more comfortable with children than I have ever been in my life. I work with grades K-2 at Cabrini, and 2-8 at St. Vincent’s Learning Club. I love helping the children with basic math, reading, and writing skills. I love teaching and helping them explore art of all kinds. I love watching them succeed, especially when they struggle, and I have grown to love them. I am developing more fully my patience for children and my desire to help them learn that will serve me well in my hopefully future career with youth arts programs or campus ministry. And of course, I love getting the hugs and the smiles from those kids, and from the women I meet at Let’s Start.

Working with Let’s Start has opened my eyes to the issues of women’s incarceration, drug/alcohol addiction, and the effects of those on children and families. My presence at the Let’s Start group meetings, my work with their Stories of Hope dramatic presentations, and my hopefully future trips to Vandalia prison with the children of current prisoners are all ways that I grow in my faith, grow more knowledgeable of the issues facing these women, and offer direct hope that there is something better out there. I have found that being moral support has taken on a new meaning and is much more challenging with these women, but I still try and I still love them to the best of my ability.

I believe that unconditional love is one of the things I’m learning the most this year. Loving all of the men, women, children, families, housemates, and coworkers I am in contact with every day—that’s a Vincentian quality I am challenged to encounter and experience daily. When dishes don’t get done, when people seem to put drama ahead of people, when parents don’t get their children to school on time, and when I meet someone who has experienced difficulties greater than I could ever imagine—those are the situations in which I must learn, and choose, to love.

My mom told me in October that in everything I do, I have to accept where I am and where other people are in our personal journeys. I can’t expect everyone to be of the same mindset, to have the same expectations, and to live or learn or love in the same way I do. My mom’s words have hit home in more ways than she initially intended, and it is those words that have become my motto over the past months. In all I continue to do and encounter this year, I must learn to accept differences. That doesn’t mean I stop challenging or working for better things or for changes, but I have to be patient and to accept that things will not happen in my way or my time. Women will still be imprisoned for nonviolent crimes and won’t receive drug treatment and counseling. Men, women, and children will still go without food, clothing, or housing. People will still be irresponsible, students will still be unruly, and my awareness of God’s presence in my life will still ebb and flow. But bit by bit, moment by moment, action by action, word by word, and day by day my presence at my sites, my presence in my clients and students’ lives, and my love will make a miniscule change, somewhere, somehow, in some way.

MATCHING FUNDS APPEAL COMING IN JANUARY!

We are happy to announce that in January we will be sending you information about a special matching funds appeal to support the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers program.

We are blessed by a special group of donors, the Gatekeepers, who will match donations made to the GVV program.

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS APPEAL COMING TO YOUR MAILBOX IN JANUARY!

Gateway Vincentian Volunteers serve those in poverty, the marginalized, and the disenfranchised in the spirit of St. Vincent DePaul at the following agencies.

  • St. Vincent DePaul Parish

  • St. Frances Cabrini Academy

  • Places for People

  • The Franciscan Connection’s Stone-by-Stone Project

  • The Family Center

  • Marian Middle School

  • Guardian Angel Settlement Association

  • Community Alternatives

The Gateway Vincentian Volunteers Program Board of Directors

  • Fr. Ed Murphy, C.M., President

  • Mr. Rich LaPlume, Vice-President

  • Fr. Tom Esselman, C.M., Secretary

  • Ms. Tricia Theil, Treasurer

  • Mr. John Capellupo

  • Fr. David Nations, C.M.

  • Mr. Ted Fiedler

  • Sr. Kieran Kneaves, D.C.

  • Ms. Martha Lane

  • Mr. Bill McRoberts

  • Sr. Kathy Overman, D.C.

  • Dr. Fred Rottnek

  • Mrs. Sue Shine

  • Jim and Geri Ryan, Directors, ex-officio members of board

Board meetings are held at 6:00 P.M. on the second Monday every other month.

Home - What We Do - Who We Are - Our Newsletter - Community Events - How to Apply
 How to Help - Photo Album - Contact Us

Gateway Vincentian Volunteers
2912 Arsenal Street
St. Louis, MO 63118
(314) - 771-1474
Toll free: (888)-771-7220
Fax: (314) - 771-2410
email: gatevol@aol.com