Conference News and Notes
for Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Sent to all Vincentians & Staff
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Vincentian Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 8, 2022
Gospel: (John 10:27-30) Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”
Reflection: In many parishes, this is called “Good Shepherd Sunday” where we reflect on Jesus’ care and assurance as we listen to the words “No one can take them out of my hand.” We are called to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow Him. We follow first by listening. Hearing Jesus - heeding His voice - is already an act of following. This is a good Sunday to bask in Jesus’ care and protection, listen to His voice calling us to His loving, embracing hands, and rejoice in the goodness showered upon us who are faithful to His call. (Living Liturgy, p.120)
Vincentian Meditation: It is not so much what sheep do, nor even what the shepherd does, that the key to understanding the message of Jesus is to be found. It is rather on the quality of the shepherd that we must center our attention: on his heart and mind rather than on his functions. Think of the occasions when our Lord spoke of the shepherd. The shepherd is one who protects; one who searches; one who speaks and calls the sheep by name. The image was a favorite one of our Lord, because it conveyed to His hearers the idea of one who cares and who does not take flight when danger threatens. The shepherd protects, searches, and speaks. This is what Jesus did. Given St. Vincent’s sensitivity to fulfilling the will of God in the smallest details of his life, he might well ask us: Do you consistently search out the Will of God, not only in the crisis points of your life, but day by day and hour by hour do you listen to hear His voice? (McCullen, Deep Down Things, p. 731)
How do we listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd in our families and in our Conferences? How are you called to contribute within your flock?
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Your Formation & Training Opportunities
First Friday Fellowship is this Friday (5/6) via Zoom, at noon. We will be discussing the theme of Faith through Service: how our lives have been impacted by the work we do with our neighbors and sharing reflections on our own personal experiences. We invite anyone to participate. Just go to Zoom and enter:
Meeting ID: 898 9553 7287 and Passcode: 291833 .
Our First Friday Fellowship is a recurring Zoom meeting, so you may copy the ID and Passcode into the notes as a recurring scheduled meeting every first Friday of the month. If you need to join a bit late or leave early, we fully understand and appreciate the time you offer to get to know one another.
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Poverty Simulation is coming up on Sat, 6/11, 9-11am, at our Ozanam Center (Liz Carter Center, 1125 Bank Street, with the gated parking lot). Everyone is highly encouraged to attend, especially if you have been to an Exploring Poverty workshop. This experience enables you to take on the persona of a neighbor’s experience we have encountered, as you live through a typical month within this active workshop. There will be time for reflection and discussion of the experience, perfect for entire Conferences or groups from a variety of Conferences to attend. Advanced registration is greatly appreciated. To register, please email Formation@svdpcincinnati.org or through the signup genius link.
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Financial Literacy Zoom Sessions are being offered to anyone interested. The course/session is held each Thursday via Zoom, 1-2pm, and is designed as a one-time, introductory session to help neighbors, Vincentians, or anyone interested in developing basic financial literacy habits and plans. These sessions are not personal financial sessions; rather they are a general overview of skills, tips, and habits to develop to build a foundation for financial planning. For those interested, please see the website which contains a signup genius link as well.
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Please Save the Dates!
On the near horizon:
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Our Annual Conference Presidents Meeting - next Sat morning, 5/14, @ Guardian Angels; invitations have been sent to Conference Presidents; we're eager to have all of our adult Conferences represented for a participative program tailored to our Vincentians' perspective
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Our Summer Meeting - Wed evening, 6/15, site & theme TBD; this popular annual event emphasizes our Vincentian friendship with food, beverages, and most importantly you! More info to come
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Join St. Vincent de Paul in honoring Sherie Marek's and Linda Mueller’s commitment to Cincinnati’s neighbors in need.
Thursday, May 19, 2022
Anderson Pavilion & Carol Ann’s Carousel
Tickets: $90*; Includes dinner, drinks, and parking
Reserved Table for 10: $1,200; Includes dinner, drinks, priority seating, table signage, and parking
*Vincentians receive 20% off individual ticket prices! Use the following code at check-out: COSVINNY22
Sherie Marek and Linda Mueller are longtime advocates and friends of St. Vincent de Paul. They both annually support neighbors in need, and were instrumental to the success of SVDP’s Upward Spiral Comprehensive Campaign – which helped drastically expand access to resources for local families. SVDP is grateful for Sherie's and Linda's generosity and commitment to our community. Join us in celebration of their service!
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Recruiting New Vincentians Helps Everyone
SVDP National's E-Gazette included a great letter from CEO Dave Barringer on recruiting this past week. Here's the link in case you missed it or would enjoy a second look:
Think about it; pray over it. You know someone whose life would be forever enriched by joining you in this vocation. Christ is calling them, through you.
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Featuring our St. Catharine of Siena Conference This Week |
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The Westwood community and our Council are blessed with an active St. Catharine of Siena Conference of 18 members. Together, they grow in faith, friendship, and service, receiving 50-60 requests and engaging & helping 40-50 neighbors, including children, each week. They recently joined with fellow Family of Parishes Vincentians from St. Antoninus Conference to share Eucharist on Ozanam Sunday and nurture relationships - pictured here discussing their fruitful utilization of CMS. (This Family includes 5 parishes, each with a Conference.) They also hosted our Home Visits workshop this past Saturday morning.
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The parish's worship space, set atop one of Cincinnati's beloved hills, is simply beautiful - old-world craftsmanship in splendid condition and excellent acoustics to support talented, passionate singers & musicians and a fully restored pipe organ in the loft. The members invite their fellow Vincentians from throughout Hamilton County to join them for Mass in the near future. Your hosts will gladly share some of the history & culture so thoughtfully and reverently integrated in this treasure. |
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Conference Referrals from our Central Help Line:
Please Note Procedural Enhancement
Every day, our Council's central Help Line (513.421.0602) receives many requests for assistance from neighbors in our Conferences’ service areas. Our Call Center team members have previously returned these calls, giving the neighbors the correct phone number for the Conference in their area; the neighbor would then call the Conference directly. Beginning Mon, 4/25, our Call Center now calls the Conferences directly and leaves messages on the neighbors’ behalf. Doing this will reduce the number of phone calls that our neighbors must make and should also reduce duplicate calls to our Help Line. Vincentians should expect messages from NOC staff and/or volunteers sharing neighbors’ name, address, phone number, and the type of assistance they are requesting, and should return these calls as they typically return calls from neighbors who call them directly. We are hopeful that this step will help to provide better service to our neighbors and our Vincentians. If you have any questions about this enhanced process, please contact Call Center Manager Adriana Howard at ahoward@svdpcincinnati.org or Director of Conferences Tom Roberts at troberts@svdpcincinnati.org .
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Archdiocese of Cincinnati Beacons of Light Initiative
- We will have 24 Families of Parishes in Hamilton County. 23 of the 24 Families have at least 1 active SVDP Conference currently. We have active Conferences present in 56 of the 74 current Hamilton County parishes. Of the 18 current parishes without a Conference, 16 of those parishes are in Families with at least 1 active Conference. Sure sounds like an opportunity to welcome more Hamilton County Catholics to the gift of our Vincentian vocation!
- How are you preparing for opportunities in your Family of Parishes?
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Our Archdiocese continues to post fresh content at BeaconsAOC.org .
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Our Archdiocese hosts monthly Beacons Roundtable Zoom gatherings on Tuesdays, 1:30-3pm. These gatherings are attracting priests, deacons, parish leaders, and passionate parishioners from throughout our Archdiocese. The May gathering is 5/17, entitled Evangelization The Pathway Program. And then the final Phase 0 - Warm-Up gathering of this initiative will be 6/21. In this Phase 0, we are encouraged to pray, learn, and prepare. Phase 1 - Leadership - begins with the implementation on 7/1.
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Summer Heat Relief Program Has Begun
Our AC request form is now live! Please direct neighbors to https://SVDPcincinnati.org/AC to complete a request. Vincentians are welcome to complete a request on behalf of a neighbor.
We are also currently distributing fans on a walk-in basis at the Neyer Outreach Center. Neighbors can request a fan during normal operating hours at the NOC.
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SafeParish Training
St. Vincent de Paul takes seriously the safety of the children and vulnerable adults who we serve in our ministry. As a Catholic lay organization, we are required to adhere to Safeguarding standards that are consistent with those of our Archdiocese. If you engage with anyone under the age of 18 or with vulnerable adults as part of your work with SVDP, or if you have questions about whether you should complete this training, please reach out to Alec Jewell at ajewell@svdpcincinnati.org for more information on Safeguarding or to register for SafeParish training/background checks. We appreciate your efforts to ensure a safe environment for the neighbors who we serve.
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Referring Neighbors for our Council's
Centrally Administered Assistance Programs
At this point in time, we have fully extended all (City of Cincinnati) EPI and (Hamilton County) TANF funding made available to us. We are, for now, not extending assistance from either program.
Availability of assistance through publicly-funded programs is fluid. We will continue to pass along new developments so you can manage expectations accordingly.
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Insight & Invitations from Our Thrift Stores
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Helpful reminder: The vouchers you issue are redeemable for 30 days (previously 14) from the issue date you note on the face of the voucher - and you can make the issue date the date you expect the voucher to be delivered to your neighbor, as traditional mail service can take a few days currently; both of these accommodations are extended to make it easier for your neighbors to realize the assistance you/we are extending.
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Spring is Bundle Sunday Season - Hosting a Bundle Sunday is a great way to engage your fellow parishioners, create visibility and awareness of your Conference's good works, and connect unwanted / unutilized clothing & household goods with neighbors who will appreciate them through our network of thrift stores. Our stores' team is eager to partner with you to make hosting a Bundle Sunday a snap. Just call us @ 513.421.2273 (421-CARE) to make it happen.
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Demand for furniture (for voucher redemption and purchase) is currently exceeding the pace of donations we are receiving. Do you have surplus furniture you'd like to donate? Just call us @ 513.421.2273 (421-CARE) to make it happen. Thank you for repurposing this furniture with someone who will truly value it.
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CMS Tips & Tricks
Your work as a Vincentian may involve finding a non-SVDP resource to assist a neighbor. This activity, while likely not impacting your Conference through a financial outlay or direct in-kind assistance, does involve your generous time. This time can easily be captured in CMS and will be accumulated into the time spent and hours traveled in your monthly and quarterly reports.
How is this accomplished? A video, produced by our Resource Analyst John Wessel, guides you through this process step-by-step. You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/yPj73NC1jnk. Please know that our neighbors, your Conference, and our Council are best served when we fully record and report the hours and miles you invest in your Vincentian vocation.
CMS helps you better engage and lift your neighbors. And it will help us better attract & deploy resources to assist these same neighbors experiencing need. Join fellow Vincentians & Conferences and make this leap forward - for our neighbors - now!
Whether you are a current CMS user - or soon to be one - Help sessions are available! Please contact John Wessel at jwessel@SVDPcincinnati.org, or by phone at 513.562.1823 to schedule a group or individual session.
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More Resources for our Conferences and Neighbors
Conference Assistance Fund (CAF)
We, together, extended $373,576 in total FY2022 CAF assistance for the 6 months ended 3/31/2022.
Our final April activity:
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You submitted 144 applications
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We approved 134 applications = approx $58,000 in assistance; 3 were withdrawn; 1 was declined
Our May activity (through Tues, 5/3):
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You've submitted 7 applications
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We've approved 5 applications
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We currently have 20 applications in progress toward approval
We offer thanks to those Conferences & their donors who have recently twinned through CAF, to our Conferences & Vincentians who are submitting quality applications, to our volunteers who are processing these applications so promptly, and to Olivia & Alec. As has been our repeated message, we encourage you to fully consider our neighbor's situation and other resources which could be deployed as you discern a request for CAF assistance. This is particularly applicable to neighbor situations where the total $ required exceeds the sum of the assistance you can assemble - and please remember there are other programs available in our community which have provisions for much higher assistance caps. If you are contemplating extending CAF assistance as a more-immediate bridge due to extended turnaround times for other publicly-funded community programs, please make sure our neighbor is in the queue for these other programs to which they should be eligible. Advocate for & with our neighbor to seek these community resources!
Our Charitable Pharmacy is Still Providing COVID Vaccinations
The CDC has recently released new guidance on boosters for those most susceptible to severe COVID complications. Want more info? Our Charitable Pharmacy staff is available to answer any questions. You can contact Dr. Rusty Curington at rcurington@svdpcincinnati.org and a Pharmacy team member will respond.
Our Re-Entry Program
Our Re-Entry Program is eager to work with neighbors you are serving who have been affected by the criminal justice system. This includes individuals who are currently incarcerated or have been incarcerated in the past; it also includes people who have had interactions with the criminal justice system but have not been incarcerated. It can also include neighbors who have a family member who falls into one of these categories. If you are serving a neighbor who may benefit from these services, which include:
- Direct assistance, including rent, utility, and other basic needs assistance
- Referrals to employment and housing resources
- Case management
- Advice related to expungement and child support issues
Please refer them to our Re-Entry Program Manager, Dion Crockett. Dion can be reached at 513.562.8851 or dcrockett@svdpcincinnati.org . You may contact Dion directly or you may share his contact information with the neighbor so that they may contact him.
Dion met with our Holy Family Conference yesterday evening and is looking forward to being with our St Dominic Conference on Mon evening, 5/23. If you would like to host Dion at a Conference meeting or get together with him in another way, please reach out to him.
Rahe Beds Fund & Program
If your Conference is considering purchasing beds to extend as assistance, you can get info, including current pricing, or purchase by contacting Dave Chidlow, Stores Retail Resource Manager, at dchidlow@svdpcincinnati.org or 513.853.1002. Your purchased beds will be picked up at our CHRC within our Liz Carter Center.
We still have a limited number of cribs & pack ‘n’ plays available for neighbors with children too young for beds (under age two). These do not count against the limit of two Rahe beds per household per lifetime. If you have a neighbor who is in need of a crib or pack ‘n’ play, please contact Gabby at rahebedfund@svdpcincinnati.org. We will provide the neighbor with a voucher that can be redeemed at our CHRC.
Do you have questions about our Rahe Beds Fund & Program?
Please click on this link Bed Program Conference Guide to review our most current information, which includes some updates to the way beds assistance should be entered in CMS.
Cooking Improv with La Soupe
Our partner La Soupe teams with our Catino Choice Pantry to present monthly Cooking Improv demonstrations in the Teaching Kitchen at our NOC. Instructors from La Soupe engage participants on basic cooking principles and how to use what you have to create delicious, nutritious meals. The demonstrations are on the first Wednesday of every month, 11am-1pm. The demos last 15-20 minutes and repeat continuously during this time frame. Each demonstration is limited to seven participants. The interaction is uplifting and the food is delicious.
Our next event is today (Wed, 5/4). No pre-registration is required. Feel free to share this information with your neighbors, or if you’re interested in getting involved in our Teaching Kitchen programming, please reach out to Demi Schoenherr at dschoenherr@svdpcincinnati.org for more information.
Education Center Within Our Neyer Outreach Center
Our NOC Education Center is available for neighbors to use during our operating hours: Monday - Friday, 8am - 4pm, and Saturday, 8am - noon.
Christ Church Plumb Line
Olivia Scheper, Conferences Support Coordinator, is our central contact point-person. Plumb Line only accepts assistance referrals from this single SVDP point-person.
As a reminder, Plumb Line can assist with $400 of past due rent for neighbors who are currently working.
All referrals to Plumb Line should be sent to:
Olivia Scheper
Phone: 513.345.4986, ext 239
Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW)
GCWW's Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program provides funds for assistance for eligible tenants residing in the City of Cincinnati. The funds will pay GCWW water, sewer, and stormwater charges. Any accrued charges during March 2020 (the start of the pandemic) or after are eligible to be paid with these funds.
Tenants must qualify by completing an online application at assistance.mygcww.org and certifying that their household income is at or below 80% of Area Median Income (AMI). Renters can also call 513.591.7700 to receive assistance from the call center to complete an application. If eligible neighbors have balances prior to March 2020, those charges will not be paid with these funds. However, neighbors can enroll in a flexible payment plan through the PromisePay Portal. GCWW customers can visit GCWW.promise-pay.com for details about the program and how to enroll. Customers who have paid their accounts and/or have an active payment plan on their GCWW account(s) and keep up with their current charges will be removed from the delinquency/shutoff process.
Renters not residing in Cincinnati city limits but living in Hamilton County can visit https://erap.hcjfs.org/ for utility assistance.
GCWW announced this past week that they will resume shutoffs and tacking on late fees as of this past Mon, 5/2. Please encourage our neighbors with past-due balances to proactively address their obligation before they face a disruption of service.
Duke Energy
For questions on accounts or pledges for neighbors requesting utility assistance, please contact Duke Energy's Centralized Agency Team at 800.241.3194. Advocates are currently available Monday through Friday, 7:30am - 5:30pm.
Seasonal developments:
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The Winter Reconnect Order went into effect on 10/18/2021 and expired 4/15/2022. Duke is yet to resume shutoffs, but we should expect that day is coming. Please encourage our neighbors with past-due balances to proactively address their obligation before they face a disruption of service.
- Find more info at energyhelp.ohio.gov
City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County COVID Assistance
There is still a substantial sum of COVID federal economic recovery & relief emergency funding available in our area. If you encounter a neighbor who has experienced financial hardship due to COVID, please refer them to https://513relief.org .
Cincinnati Eye Institute Foundation (CEIF) Vision Clinic in our Neyer Outreach Center
The Vision Clinic operates by appointment on certain Thursdays as designated by CEIF. Our Vision Clinic is open, 8:30am - 3pm, tomorrow and each of the remaining Thursdays in May. A limited number of walk-in exams can also be accommodated. To schedule an appointment, or to inquire for additional info, please call 513.207.6140.
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Call to Prayer
Lord Jesus, give us the grace to listen to the Good Shepherd,
give us the grace to always search for the will of God.
For those who are lonely or overwhelmed,
may we bring them the Good Shepherd’s friendship.
For all those who are poor and destitute,
may we bring them the Good Shepherd’s protection.
For the sick and the dying,
may we bring them the Good Shepherd’s healing love.
Amen.
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