The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SSVP)

By way of introduction, The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SSVP) is an international charity network and in South Africa, it is registered as a non-profit and public benefit organisation (NPO 003/193). Our local network is linked to the parish of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in La Rochelle, South of Johannesburg. It is run by a team of dedicated members and volunteers, who give of their time and talents, in the field of Feeding the Hungry and Clothing the Naked, which are just two of the core works of the network.

In June 2020 a new interim executive was appointed, under the leadership of Lena Perumal as president, with Michelle Fick – secretary, Emmanuel Musa – communications and Lionel Jackson – finance. We are all active parishioners of St. Patrick’s, La Rochelle, with Fr. Jorge as our parish priest and Dc. Walter as our spiritual leader.

During the early levels of the lockdown, our parish together with the operational help of the SSVP managed to hand out over 10 000 food parcels. This was funded from overseas sponsorships (foreign currency), donations from parishioners and also local companies. This unfortunately had to stop because of ongoing funding.

However, the functioning of the SSVP returned back to normality in July, with the new structure in place. We continue to feed between 200 – 250 families every month with food parcels and this is all funded from generous donations received.

We are also assisting some of these families to become self-reliant and are running projects in gardening, sale of plastic ware and mother and daughter care.

Like all other charities, fund raising is a challenge because of cancelled events and a marked drop in donations because of the current economic situation. However, the requests for food parcel assistance are increasing.