The Society of St. Vincent de Paul in the United States is committed to ending poverty. Along with the entire Vincentian Family, we see Systemic Change as the means to this goal. In an effort to proliferate this goal throughout the country, St Vincent de Paul of Santa Clara County was provided a grant from SVdP USA to be used for these efforts. Systemic Change, at the Local Community Level, means to understand the attitudes, works and programs currently in place and transition any that might enable poverty toward individual empowerment change.
In this vein we wanted to partner with a local charity that complemented our efforts with the ultimate goal of delivering on the Systemic Change vision and providing a clear path to self-sufficiency. Sunday Friends, which is a non-profit also located in San Jose, does exactly this. Their programs empower families to break the generational cycle of poverty by fostering positive development in children while educating and guiding parents to support their children’s life success. Sunday Friends’ model: Self-respect and pride in one’s accomplishments are earned through work and helping others – not by accepting handouts. Helping children, parents and families to reframe their views of themselves and of their relationships with their communities requires more than a class. It requires new experiences over an extended period of time.
The funds from this grant are being used to provide the baby supplies, school supplies, teen supplies and household products that families earn through participation in the Sunday Friends program activities, as well as the activity costs for education in parenting, financial literacy, academics, STEM, computers, path to college, nutrition and much more. “With the support of local donors we do our best to ensure that those in need receive support and stay housed and the homeless are provided shelter and housing. Sunday Friends complements our effort by ensuring basic life skills are learned, by the entire family, giving them the skills needed to maintain a stable home life. We enjoy hearing from the families on how our efforts have helped them on the path of stability.”, said Rose Mary Becker, President of SVdP Santa Clara County.
St Vincent de Paul of Santa Clara County is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization that has been helping the needy in Santa Clara County since 1946. Those interested in supporting us through donations and volunteering should visit www.svdp.org/santaclara.