Supporting our neighbors in need through spirituality, friendship and service;

providing emergency food, clothing, financial and in-kind assistance, since 1868

"After all, to say that the Society is ‘providential’ is precisely to say that it is not our doing.” - Frédéric Ozanam 

There is something refreshing in knowing we’re not in charge, in being open to the abundance of Spirit that leads and loves us. But it’s also sometimes alarming, because we aren’t always sure the Spirit is paying close enough attention or that the abundance is really there. Then scarcity seems the more prudent approach for us. We need to be sure we have enough. Frédéric Ozanam understood that ebb and flow and recognized it as something we constantly encounter in ourselves and our surroundings, especially when we’re faced with the realization that we don’t have the resources to cover all that’s asked of us. 

Or do we? What is our resource if not the abundant Spirit of Love, who “makes [the] sun rise on the bad and the good and causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45).” We open ourselves to an ever-deeper awareness of God’s abundant love for all of us through prayer and action – faith and hope. 

As I retire as Executive Director of the Society in Omaha at the end of the month, I pray that we will continually depend on prayer and action to express God’s overwhelming and abundant love for everyone, especially in the face of our temptation to let the limits of scarcity hinder our mission.  

You will see the impact of Abundant Love in this newsletter. While it is clearly not just our doing, God does invite us to receive and participate. I hope you will join us as best you can.

- Marty Smith, Executive Director

Giving Tuesday!

Giving Tuesday - the national day of giving which always lands on the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving - was an unqualified success this year. Organized locally by SHARE Omaha, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul received $24,207 in donations that day, contributed by ninety-one total donors. This incredible amount includes the $5,000 in matching challenge funds that were offered by a friend of, and donor to SSVP Omaha.

Please know how grateful the Society is to everyone who made a gift in support of our organization on Giving Tuesday. The collective effort of these donors helped make November 29th the tremendously impactful, one-day fundraising event that it was!

ST. COLUMBKILLE'S "SOCKTOBER"

What does 13,000 pairs of socks look like? Linda Kueper, Past President of St. Columbkille's SSVP conference knows very well. At her direction, the children attending St. Columbkille Catholic School - and those attending the parish's religious education classes - recently finished their annual "Socktober" sock drive.

The goal of this year’s drive was to collect and donate to local charities as many pairs of socks as possible during the month of October…and definitely to surpass last year's total number of 10,000 pairs. When all was “said and done”, Linda and the kids had collected 13,000 pairs of socks!

With her charismatic personality, Linda – pictured with “only” several hundred pairs of socks here at our SSVP Holy Family Community Center – has enjoyed engaging the St. Columbkille children in this annual endeavor. States Linda: "In addition to assisting with the mission of non-profit organizations in our community with these sock donations, I truly love helping the students learn about the importance of being involved in their community and serving those in need."

Below are the local charities that benefitted from St. Columbkille's 2022 “Socktober” sock drive (including the number of pairs of socks each organization received):

St. Vincent de Paul’s Closet Door – 5,000

St. Vincent de Paul’s 2022 Winter Coat & Apparel Drive/Giveaway – 2,500

Salvation Army’s Night Watch Program – 1,500

Open Door Mission. 1,000

Siena Francis House – 1,000

Stephen Center – 1,000

Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition – 600

Mercy Housing – 500

Victory Apartments’ Veteran Housing – 150

On behalf of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Omaha and these organizations, we would like to sincerely thank Linda Kueper and the St. Columbkille kids for their amazing “Socktober” Sock Drive!

Many Ways to Give!

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization, all financial gifts made to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Omaha are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law, and are greatly appreciated. And, as the year-end approaches, you may be interested to know that there are a number of options to consider and choose from, when making a monetary gift to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Omaha:

• Send a check, cash or money order to: the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Omaha – 1715 Izard Street – Omaha, NE, 68102.
• Make an online gift, using a credit or debit card – at ssvpomaha.org.org.
• Set up a recurring/monthly donation – also at ssvpomaha.org.
• Make a gift of securities (stocks or mutual funds).
• Make a qualified charitable distribution from an Individual Retirement Account (for those 70 ½ and older).
• Make an estate planning/legacy gift in your will, one that will provide hope for those in need to last well into the future.

If you have any questions or need assistance regarding any of these giving options, please contact our Development Director, Tim Sully at development@svdpomaha.com.

Thank you for your sustained support of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Omaha!

Thank You to Our Volunteers!

Volunteers make a tremendous difference at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Omaha each and every day. In a given year, nearly 1,000 volunteers support our mission of serving our neighbors in need by giving of their time and talent to our organization. Volunteer opportunities include:

• Vincentian parish/conference outreach
• Assisting in one of our four thrift stores
• Helping in our food pantry & pantry garden
• Making and distributing sack lunches at our Holy Family Community Center (HFCC)
• Distributing clothing through our Closet Door at our HFCC
• Providing administrative, light maintenance or gardening assistance at our HFCC

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul Omaha relies on, and is grateful for the involvement and assistance of our committed volunteers. Frankly, we would not be able to accomplish our critical mission of serving the poor without them. Information regarding volunteering can be found on our secure website, HERE!

WOWT'S

Stuff the Bus!

A Vincentian-sized debt of gratitude goes out to our friends at WOWT for organizing their December 1st "Stuff the Bus" food collection, benefitting our SSVP food pantry and the Kountze Memorial food pantry. After everything was distributed, our 21st & Leavenworth Street pantry had received 16,953 pounds of food - an incredible amount! In addition to our gratitude to WOWT, we also wish to sincerely thank everyone who donated the thousands of non-perishable food items, all of which will go toward feeding those most in need from right here in our community!

Help Us Provide a

Well-Rounded Free Lunch!

Mondays through Fridays, volunteers come to our Holy Family Community Center and make sandwiches, and then put together and distribute a couple of hundred sack lunches for our homeless and near-homeless neighbors in need. These volunteers are an incredibly committed bunch!

In addition to a hearty sandwich, each sack lunch includes a piece of fruit or vegetable, a simple dessert item (like a cookie) and a bottle of water. The final sack lunch item (which our neighbors very much appreciate) is something we've nicknamed a "saltie". Salties can take many forms, although they're generally potato chips, other kinds of chips, pretzels or any similarly salty-tasting snack item.

Unfortunately, the one sack lunch item which we simply NEVER seem to have enough of? SALTIES!

So, we would very much appreciate it if you would consider donating any kind (and any amount!) of "salties" to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Omaha - for use in our sack lunch program. Please feel free to drop off any donations to our Holy Family Community Center - 1715 Izard Street - from 10:30 am - 1 pm, Mondays-Fridays (and ask for Jeff). Jeff can also be contacted at hfministries@svdpomaha.com. Thank You!

Our Path Forward:

Only in God’s Abundant Love

by Marty Smith 

Although what follows is not really a prayer, these thoughts frame what is my prayer for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Omaha on what I’m calling our path forward.

Acting out of gratitude for God’s love and care for us gives us the assurance that we can share God’s overwhelming abundance with others. Acting out of concern for our own livelihood creates a feeling of scarcity and self-preservation which inhibits our freedom to care for others first. God’s abundant care upholds everything the Society does. My prayer for our path forward is that we relish God’s abundant love and act on it.

As Blessed Frederick Ozanam said, “After all, to say that the Society is ‘providential’ is precisely to say that it is not our doing."

I am reminded of the image of Jesus as Divine Mercy inspired by St. Faustina with the prayer “Jesus I trust in you.” The more we trust Jesus, the more he invites us to act. That’s why the purpose of the Society is the spiritual growth of its members. That growth allows abundance to become the essence of our actions.

We grow as we accept the invitation of the Spirit to abundant Love, that inner coherence of all creation, God’s intention, God’s presence in creation from the beginning. The invitation to:

o   A trust in inner coherence itself. “It all means something!” (Faith) 

o   A trust that this coherence is positive and going somewhere good (Hope)

o   A trust that this coherence includes me and even defines me (Love) ¹

Without trust in Jesus’ constant love and care, we take control, work to protect ourselves, and run amok. We all do it, all the time. That’s our sin. And Jesus knows that, and forgives us in love, and continues to invite us to act in love for others first.

Vincentian spirituality grows out of our actions in love, trusting the inner coherence that is God, who is Love.

The result of our active trust in Jesus is greater and deeper relationships with God, with each other, with our neighbors - spirituality, friendship, service.

These God-given relationships are at the very core of what St. Paul meant when he said, “Sin has increased but grace has far surpassed it” (Romans 5:20).

So, we push ourselves to encounter the other because of this ever-present invitation to:

o   Trust in inner coherence itself. “It all means something!” (Faith) 

o   Trust that this coherence is positive and going somewhere good (Hope)

o   Trust that this coherence includes us and even defines us (Love)

This has always been God’s invitation. Consider this passage from The Imitation of Christ, a 15th century text by Thomas a Kempis.

“There was once a certain anxious man who, wavering often between fear and hope and exhausted with grief, prostrated himself in prayer in church before the altar.

Turning these things in his mind, he said, ‘Oh, if only I knew that I shall persevere.’ On the spot, he heard the divine answer in his own heart: ‘What if you knew this? What would you do? Do now what you would do then, and you will be very safe.’

“Soon after, having been comforted and strengthened, he gave himself up to God’s will, and his anxious wavering stopped. He no longer feared for his future; instead, he sought to know God’s will for accomplishing today’s good works. ‘Hope in the Lord and do good,’ says the Prophet, ‘and dwell in the land, and you shall be fed with its riches.’” ²

This divine presence in relationships is visible everywhere, not just in religious settings. Consider this very prosaic, secular acknowledgement of inner coherence (of God’s abundance).

In 1951 the mountaineer William Hutchison Murray published The Scottish Himalayan Expedition. He wrote a compelling passage about commencing a task, and he included a couplet with an attribution to Goethe (which I’ve edited slightly):

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.

“All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no [one] could have dreamt would have come their way.

“I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and [grace] in it.’”³

“After all, to say that the Society is ‘providential’ is precisely to say that it is not our doing.”

Trust. Act. In abundant Love.

¹ Richard Rohr, OFM, Universal Christ (2019), New York: Convergent Books, p 64

² Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (2017), Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, p. 60

³ W.H.Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951), London: J.M. Dent



Society of St. Vincent de Paul Omaha at

Holy Family Community Center

1715 Izard St. Omaha, NE 68102

402-779-8499

Help Line 402-346-5445 or helpline@svdpomaha.com

info@svdpomaha.com

www.ssvpomaha.org

www.holyfamilyomaha.org

Please contact SSVP Development Director, Tim Sully, to discuss a variety of charitable donation options, including monthly giving, donating stocks or mutual funds, the IRA Charitable Rollover, as well as planned giving / estate planning possibilities at development@svdpomaha.com!