A Warm Thank You
11 August 2020
A big thank you to the most generous parish.
On behalf of Fr Robert and the Parish Council, I would like to thank you, our fellow parishioners, for your amazing generosity in support of our annual Winter Warmer project, the purpose of which is to support the poor and destitute with clothing and bedding for the cold and wet winter months.
The goods that you so kindly donate are given to the Hout Bay and Steenberg chapters of the St Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Society for distribution among the poor in their communities.
The SVdP Society is a Catholic charitable organization founded by Vincent de Paul, a French priest, who dedicated his life to serving the poor.
At the end of June, the SVdP chapter at St Anne’s parish in Steenberg collected the equivalent of 50 full black garbage bags of your donated clothing and bedding for distribution in Steenberg, Capricorn, Lavender Hill, Overcome Heights and Seawinds.
At the end of July, the SVdP chapter of St Anthony’s, and Star of the Sea, in Hout Bay, collected the equivalent of 80 such bags for distribution in Hangberg and Imizamu Yethu.
And, finally, in response to a special appeal from Fr Robert, the equivalent of 20 such bags were delivered to the Holy Cross orphanage which was extensively damaged by a fire recently.
So, thanks to your amazing generosity, a total of 150 bags of clothing and bedding were distributed to these very deserving charities. This is double the number of equivalent bags we typically distributed in previous years.
But winter is not yet over, so if anybody has unwanted used clothing and bedding in good repair, please drop off at the Parish Office and we will ensure it is delivered to those in need of a “winter warmer”.
May God bless you for your continuous generosity,
Barry Smith
PPC – Social Justice
