| |
President's Message
Address by Ed Hartmann, outgoing Council President, to Vincentians at the Annual Mass and Banquet
Good evening. Tonight I will save the usual statistics for my report on the Internet. If you want a copy, please pick one up at the able near the exit. Instead, I want to thank many of the people who helped me during my two terms as your Council President, and highlight a few important items. I want to thank:
| Andy for supporting several committees and accepting the Presidency of the Council |
| |
Virginia Castaneda for helping to form the Spirituality and Formation committees |
| Pete Andres for being on these committees and Stores leading the Spirituality |
| |
Wally Drabza for leading the Formation committee |
| Diane Halal for serving on and accepting the leadership of the Formation committee |
| |
Fr. Steve for being our Council Spiritual Advisor |
| George Ferrero for being our current VP and serving on the Governance committee |
| |
John Correz and Tom McFarlane for supporting our disaster committee |
| Lorraine and Sandy Cousins, Dave Felde, and Dick Nolan support the bylaws committee |
| |
Joe Kay for leading Serving in Hope, and Invitation to Serve and being available |
| The Board of Directors and committee members like Greg Miles, Dan Harney, Lou Mahoney, Dennis Thurston, Jim Kolar, Jim Gonzalez, and Sister Diane. |
| |
Scott, Chuck Joyce, Joe Kay, and Joe Schoeningh |
| Denis Zaun & Maureen for providing immeasurable support and help |
Now for a highlight:
The Essential Elements of the Society identify who we are and why we exist. They are three independent qualities or reasons for existence. Vincentianism calls for an integration of all three.
- Focus on spirituality only is not Vincentianism. You can join any number of organizations or third orders if spirituality is your only concern.
- Focus on fellowship only is not Vincentianism. Look within your parish and outside and you will find lots of organizations that are socially focused.
- Focus on service only is not Vincentianism. Look in the phone book. In most major cities, you will find somewhere in the area of 300 non-profits who are looking for people to provide service.
When we speak of Vincentianism, we speak of a blend of spirituality, fellowship and service. This is who we are. This is why we exist. (Serving in Hope, Module I, pg 26) Because of our love of Christ, and desire to fellowship with and encourage our Vincentian friends, and the desire to perform service, we are Vincentians. Because of that we should be able to conduct our visits with the needy with joy, and to help them gain some measure of self sufficiency through job help, education, counseling, information on the Church, and other referrals. We can teach them to fish, while feeding them, so they can gain confidence, and self respect; and maybe join us in our Vincentian calling.
Thank you all for having me as your president for these six years.
We will now have the installation of my good friend, Andy Saavedra as our new Council president. I hope that you keep your enthusiasm and joy for the mission to help Andy during his term.
Here is a short status of our Council programs for 2005:
- We lost two Thrift Stores due to the expiration of a lease and a fire. The tore in Santa Ana was replaced by our new store in Anaheim. The store in Laguna Hills will reopen in January. Our six thrift stores were able to employ 51 full and part-time people, provide free distributions worth $255,000, and provided volunteer opportunities for 820 people who spent 29,000 hours. The value of this community service is $5.3 Million.
- The Second Harvest Food Bank distributed 13.1 million pounds of food through 390+ agencies to 220,000 people per month, and provided volunteer opportunities for 8,482 people who spent 91,000 hours. We are planning to move to El Toro Marine Base. We will lease this building at no cost, and after the Navy completes all cleanups, the building will be deeded to the Society. Twenty-eight Conferences received over 850,000 pounds of food at a cost of $69,900 (8.2 cents/pound) The wholesale cost would be about $2.4 Million at 2.89/pound
- We mediated 1,107 cases at the Institute for Conflict management with 400 trained volunteer mediators providing 12,900 volunteer hours of service.
- We served over 10,800 people at Friends Outside, and provided volunteer opportunities for 129 people for a total of 3,096 hours served.
- We received a $1.8 Million grant to provide additional services to the chronic homeless and ex-offenders. We provide case management, transitional living, transportation, life skills, education and alcohol & drug abuse services. We opened an 18 bed Haven House for transitional living.
- We housed 313 people per night (1,548 unduplicated people) at the Armories and some local churches during the Cold Weather Shelter Program (37,600 bed nights and over 70,000 meals), and provided volunteer opportunities for 110 people.
- The “Lights On” program is active seven nights a week to meet those released from incarceration at midnight to provide a safe place until morning. Served 5,000 in the first 13 months of the program. (about 100/week, 14/night)
- We sent 341 intercity children to summer camp
- We supported the delivery of 295,000 Toys for Tots to 320 agencies, and 30,000 of these went to Conference clients.
- Our Council Programs provided another 700 volunteers, donating 5,000 hours.
We added three new Conferences (St. Thomas More, Mission Basilica and Santa Clara.
|
|
