'People don't ring up looking for food if they don’t need it': SVP seeks help for Christmas appeal

St Vincent de Paul has had to become ultra-creative in terms of fundraising during the pandemic, writes Ciara McDonnell

At the St. Vincent de Paul national office for the announcement of the Annual Appeal is SVP national president Rose McGowan with Matthew (5) and Elodie (9) Curry from Ratoath, Co Meath. Photo Fennell Photography

From virtual food appeals to empty toy shops, the team at the Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) have had to flex their creative muscles with their annual Christmas appeal. 

The theme of 'Impossible Choices' is extremely poignant for many families this year, says SVP National President, Rose McGowan. 

“We reckon we will have 160,000 calls before the end of the year. People do not ring up looking for food if they don’t need it. I think we need to realise that people don't want to be reliant on the Saint Vincent de Paul.”   

McGowan says Covid-19 has affected every aspect of life, and the stress that SVP volunteers are hearing on phone calls is palpable. 

“Last week, one woman said to me over the phone 'Christmas is coming and I've never been as stressed. I'm crying myself to sleep,'” she says. 

It is not just from people who would need our help a lot. People have lost jobs. Mums would be dropping children to school and they may have part-time work – a couple of hours while the kids are at school. 

"That might be in delicatessens, coffee shops, low paid work. That extra money keeps the show on the road. 

"That may have been lost. There are businesses gone, salary cuts, jobs lost – this pandemic has affected everybody.”   

SVP volunteer Brendan O'Neill.

Brendan O'Neill has been volunteering for SVP for 35 years and says that when Covid-19 arrived, it was as though every single charity disappeared overnight. 

He believes it is important to give context to the situation we find ourselves in. 

“If you go back to 2008 when we had the financial crash, we thought at that stage that there was no way we were going to be able to manage,” he points out. 

“Would you believe it, those people who were still working at the time were still donating and we had one of our biggest Christmas collections ever in 2009. 

"People just realised that some members of their community were really badly off and those who had a 'few bob' to give really dug deep and gave really well for the next few years.”   

Then, as now, church gate collections are a huge revenue stream for the charity. 

Rose McGowan estimates that between the loss of church gate collections since March and the opening and closing of SVP shops nationwide, the organisation is looking at a loss of at least €9 million. 

“And that’s not including all of the amazing individual efforts that we see year in, and year out from people who take it upon themselves to raise money on our behalf. That’s not happening as much now, of course.”  

Here in Cork in the years following the financial crash, church gate collections were an essential part of SVP’s income, says Mr O’Neill. 

“We had actually exhausted a whole year's reserve over a very short period of time and I remember being at a meeting in 2010 and the church gate collection in the Cork area that was funding our coal bill for the city. 

"If it wasn't there, we wouldn't have been able to do it and unfortunately, that's where we are now.”   

The organisation as a whole has had to become ultra-creative in terms of fundraising, says O’Neill. 

“Our face-to-face reach with the public that supports us so brilliantly had to stop. This is why the fundraising at this point has become so crucial. 

"The challenge is, how do you replace an income stream that you have relied on for so many years, that is so dependable and is taken away from you?”   

The answer was by embracing online donations with full force. 

“It’s a new way of giving,” says Ms McGowan. 

“I love the idea of giving the gift that has been specially chosen, and of course the Giving Tree is something that SVP is known for. 

"But this year, by us being forced to be prescriptive in terms of what we are asking for, it is working really well.” 

Through svp.ie you can donate vouchers so that children and families have what they need to share in the magic of the season. 

You can buy food hampers on their site too, or sponsor a fireplace to make sure that someone will be warm for the winter.

In Cork, for the eighth year in a row, CAB motor company has donated a new Ford car for a raffle that has already broken records in terms of ticket sales, says Regional President for the South West, Paddy O’Flynn, who has been with SVP since 2006. 

Paddy O'Flynn: "A huge need for help across the country."

“This year we have been bold enough to say if you are going to make a donation we'd like to see that donation made in cash and that is working very well under the slogan of 'Impossible Choices'.”   

It is extremely important to remember that there is a huge need for help across the country at the moment, and all donations are helping to alleviate the suffering of people in need, says O’Flynn. 

“I'm sitting here in the regional office now and downstairs we have three information officers who are full time receiving calls for help. We broke all records with calls for help in November.”  

O’Flynn says that Covid-19 has affected the organisation greatly, most of all because it cannot carry out the work that it is rooted in – providing face-to-face contact with those who require it.  

“It is not safe to visit people in their homes, we have our own protocols on health and safety so we are doing a lot on the telephone,” he explains. 

Older people are more and more isolated and lonely. We talk to these people a lot on the telephone and while we can't visit, we apply them with assistance either through energy, meaning coal or gas or with their utility bills. 

"Then instead of visiting, we use the postal service to provide food vouchers. This time of the year we have a major campaign to provide hampers to people and that is very much in full swing at the moment.”   

It is impossible to say how many people that SVP help across the South West region, but it is a significant amount, says the Regional President. 

“We have 110 conferences across the two counties and they are reasonably independent in how they operate in terms of looking after local needs in their areas. 

"The second thing is that we provide social housing and in the south-west, we are responsible for providing 120 or more houses to people in social need - that could be older people or people living alone.  

Here in Cork, we have two hostels - Saint Vincents and Deerpark House. We do have 1200 volunteers across Cork and Kerry and 300 of them would be focused on Cork and the greater Cork city area.” 

Donations big or small – they all matter to the volunteers at SVP. “People are so generous, and we appreciate every penny,” says Ms McGowan. 

“It is important for people to realise that it doesn't matter whether it's €5 or €50.” 

On the day that the Irish Examiner donates 20c from every newspaper sold, Paddy O’Flynn says that every donation, big or small, goes directly to improving the life of someone in need. 

“I  would like to say also, that I do really appreciate the generosity of the Irish Examiner in making these donations. I also regularly read it.”   

For Mr O’Neill, the huge positive to come out of the last year as a volunteer is seeing how much people want to help.

 “In my previous life, I was a teacher,” he explains. 

“The school I taught at, adopted the idea of a Giving Tree. 

Over the last few years, we had the most amazing scene whereby the children in school would line up and form a human chain and use it to take the gifts from under the tree and pass them up into the SVP truck that was outside in the car park.  

This year, while the same event can’t take place, the sentiment is still there. The children have created a ‘voucher tree’ and have raised thousands of money for SVP. 

“As a volunteer, it is so uplifting to think that people would go to the trouble of trying to find ways to circumvent this thing.

"For me, it means that the public holds what we are doing in their hearts as something of value.”