…the Charity Awareness Luncheon… as well as other activities planned to celebrate Charity Awareness Week, gives charities and benevolent Institutions such as the St Vincent de Paul Society, the opportunity to publicly thank volunteers and major supporters who freely give their time, energy and resources by going out into the community to help 5,000 Australians every day.
SYDNEY, May 29, 2006 (catholicweekly.com.au) – John O’Neill, NSW/ACT state president of the St Vincent de Paul Society, comments on Charity Awareness Week. Since its inception in Paris in 1881, The St Vincent de Paul Society membership has developed and grown. It is the largest volunteer charity in NSW/ACT and Australia with more 40,000 ordinary men and women working as volunteers nationally for the good of others. In NSW/ACT alone an estimated 281,750 family members were visited in their homes and on the streets last year, offering a helping hand wherever and whenever it is needed most. Our members and volunteers have answered God’s call to do good works and walk side by side with their brothers and sisters in need, to add a little comfort, dignity and hope to their lives, in enabling and empowering them to regain greater sense of confidence and energy. In a world obsessed with commercialism, consumerism, materialism, individualism, consumption and self-promotion, it is encouraging to know such compassion still exists. Without the dedication of volunteers, a charity such as ours would struggle to survive. READ FURTHER
