News & Events
SVP Awareness Month: September 2007
SVP - Side by Side with those in Need
Join us in raising awareness about what we do so that we can reach out to more people in need.
September is a very special month for the Society, as the following feast days take place at this time:
- 9th September - Feast of Blessed Frederic Ozanam (the Society's founder)
- 27th September - Feast of St Vincent de Paul (our Patron)
We have therefore decided to use this month as an opportunity to let more people know about our services and our work. 
It has never been the Vincentian way to trumpet the Society's successes or the scope of its activity, but it is nonetheless important that those around us know who we are and what we do. By raising the public profile of the Society we can:
- Alert those in need to the services we provide
- Encourage more people to get involved with the work of the SVP
- Reach a wider audience who may wish to support the Society's activities
SVP Awareness Month aims to do just this: to tell people about the work of the Society. This year the theme is 'Befriending' to illustrate the core work of the members and to highlight the fact that the unique nature of the SVP rests in its commitment to personal contact with those in need.
Our founder, Blessed Frederic Ozanam, taught us that:
"the knowledge of social well-being and reform can be learned not from books, nor from the public platform, but in climbing the stairs to the poor person's garret, sitting by their bedside, feeling the same cold that pierces them, sharing the secrets of their lonely hearts and troubled minds."
Members of the SVP are responsible for the half a million visits made each year: they turn faith into action by sitting side by side with those in need. The number of these visits and the scope of the work carried out by members is extraordinary, but often this work is done as a silent an unknown witness in the parish. Although the work is something to be proud of, the SVP Awareness Month is not about self-congratulation but rather about ensuring that we are working to the best of our ability as a national Society and involving as many people as possible, whether in the role of member or beneficiary.
"Charity must never look back, but always ahead, for the number of its past beneficiaries is always quite small, as the present and future miseries it should alleviate are infinite."
Blessed Frederic Ozanam
If you are an SVP member and would like to promote SVP Awareness month in your parish you can download an Awareness Resource Pack by visiting the Members' Area.
[10.08.07]