Charity appeals to public to support SVP this Christmas
Madam Editor, The Society of St Vincent de Paul ( SVP) expects to receive over 50,000 calls for help in the run- up to Christmas. The level of help we can provide will depend on the generosity of the Irish people. While our immediate concern is to help families avoid an empty Christmas, our longer term focus is on helping families to break the cycle of poverty. Support from the Society is primarily given to help people through particularly difficult times, but we also work with families to avoid the same difficulties recurring through generations. The theme of the SVP Annual Appeal, which was launched by RTE’s Ryan Tubridy, is “Your yes can last a lifetime”. A series of advertisements to highlight this message will be published during the Annual Appeal, which runs until the end of the year. They are all based on real examples from the experience of SVP members visiting families in their homes. Most of those who seek the support of St Vincent de Paul are struggling week in and week out on a basic minimum income. It is when they encounter an unexpected cost or a period that requires higher spending, such as Christmas, that they critically need SVP. The Society spends almost € 35m per year on direct assistance. We help with the costs of food, energy, and education, as well as toys at Christmas. We depend almost entirely on donations from the public and corporate supporters in order to be able to provide this help. We ask people who want to support our work to please say yes to our Annual Appeal and give locally or online.
In addition to making donations directly there are other options to support at www. svp. ie/ appeal.
These include the Giving Tree appeal, the Food Appeal and a virtual gift store.
Another way to support the campaign this year is to buy a copy of the RTÉ album ‘ As Seen On The Late Late Show.
The album features unique live performances from the show and all artists, labels and RTÉ are donating their profits to help the work of SVP.
The album is available in all good record shops and available for digital download.”
There is a diversity of organisations planning campaigns to support SVP
The Aldi ‘ Give a Gift’ for SVP campaign will take place from Monday November 21st until Monday December 12th.
Customers are invited to drop off an unwrapped gift at any Aldi store.
Bank of Ireland will be organizing a ‘ Christmas Smiles’ campaign among its staff around the country to volunteer their time to collect food and toys for people in need in their community Yours sincerely, National Vice- President SVP, Kieran Stafford