CCS: The local charity of choice for Year of Faith

Intermountain Catholic

+ Enlarge

The clothing room at the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall/Weigand Homeless Day Center is open two days a week; as many as 300 people go through each day. IC photo/Marie Mischel

SALT LAKE CITY — The Year of Faith, designated by Pope Benedict XVI to begin Oct. 11 and close Nov. 24, 2013, encourages Catholics to deepen three aspects of their faith: catechesis, liturgy and charity. (See the lead story, "Year of Faith.")

Catholic Community Services has been designated as the primary charity for the Diocese of Salt Lake City during the Year of Faith. CCS is perhaps best known for its operation of the Saint Vincent de Paul Dining Hall in Salt Lake City and the Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank in Ogden, both of which have increased their services over the past year.

"In the past 12 months, we’ve served over 390,000 meals at the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall to homeless men, women and children; the Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank distributed over 2 million pounds of food to underserved families and individuals," reads the fall issue of the CCS newsletter, The Humanitarian.

CCS offers other programs as well, including Basic Needs Services, Refugee Resettlement, St. Mary’s Home for Men and the Weigand Day Center.

As the designated charity for the Year of Faith, CCS will be collecting specific donations each month to coincide with their needs. (See "Monthly Donations Sought.")

"Every month, every season has a donation that is specific to them," said Danielle Stamos, CCS’ public relations and marketing specialist.

Of the items that will be collected, clothing and blankets will go to the Weigand Center, holiday food items will go to the dining hall and food pantries, baby items will be distributed through St. Martha’s Baby Project in Ogden and Salt Lake City; personal care items will go to St. Mary’s Home for Men and school supplies will be given to refugees throughout the year, as they arrive and begin to attend classes.

"We picked the things we need most for each of our programs," Stamos said. "We’re honored that we were chosen as the designated charity so people can see what we do. Without these donations and without the community we couldn’t provide the programs that we do. It takes a whole community to make this happen, and the parishes play a huge part."

The requested donations for October are adult men’s and women’s socks and hats, as well as coats and underwear for all ages, and blankets.

"We have around 300 homeless people coming through this property every day," said Dennis Kelsch, CCS Emergency Assistance program coordinator. "Now that the weather is changing, they’re looking for coats, they’re looking for hats, they’re looking for socks, they’re looking for gloves."

Most of those who are living on the streets don’t have a change of clothes. When what they’re wearing gets wet, they need replacements. Socks, in particular, are in great demand, Kelsch said.

"We go through thousands of pairs," he said. "You get two or three days of storminess and they all go through hundreds and hundreds of pairs."

Men’s pants also are needed, he said, because about 75 percent of homeless people are men.

Those who receive the items echoed the request for warm clothes.

"Stocking caps, gloves, coats, sweaters, sweats or something," said Anita. "Thermals. You know, winter’s coming up soon and everybody just wants to stay warm."

"The biggest thing I see around here is that people are going to need winter-type shoes because the only thing they’ve got is tennis shoes and things like that," said Willis, adding that dress shoes also would be welcome. "There’s times where we have interviews for job opportunities and instead of wearing crusty old tennis shoes or hiking boots or whatever, we can actually go in and look like we actually are part of society, not the ostracized people that our local government is trying not to show that we are. But we are."