St Vincent de Paul sees requests for help soar ahead of Christmas
THIS YEAR has been the busiest Christmas yet for St Vincent de Paul (SVP) volunteers answering the charity’s helpline and web requests for assistance.
The volunteers at their head office in Sean McDermott Street in Dublin have noticed a spike in web requests between the hours of 2am and 3am.
According to team leader at SVP in the east region Linda Kenny, people are “most worried” between those hours.
“It’s very expressive on the web because they’re actually writing down exactly how they’re feeling, so that can lead to desperation really coming across when you’re reading,” she said. “It’s very, very disheartening.
“Christmas is definitely the busiest [time] and our stats are up 8pc on November last year.”
The charity provides a helpline which people seeking assistance can call, as well as an online service which takes web requests.
Last Saturday, the office opened in the morning to find that more than 180 web requests had been made overnight.
Not only does the east region office answer the helpline to calls from all over the country and deal with web requests, it also manages a large warehouse of donations.
These include food, clothes and household items, and a large portion of the warehouse has now been sectioned off for Christmas items.
Colm Kelly works in the warehouse and helps to sort through all the donations.
“It’s been quiet enough in the Christmas section of the warehouse but this time next week it’ll be madness,” he said.
Liam Casey, SVP’s east regional president, said that Christmas donations are due to start coming in this week.
“We use 50pc of the warehouse during December to process and pack food donations and toys which we begin to get over the next two to three days and into Christmas.
“We also would make an appeal for the biggest group of children that we have a difficulty in fulfilling the needs of, which is teenagers. We appeal to companies and individuals to consider giving us vouchers for all the main stores, we find these absolutely terrific.”
However, Ms Kenny said that despite all the donations that come in from private individuals and corporate companies, the society urgently needs more volunteers.
“If you are available and a good listening ear, please contact us,” she said.
“We’re getting around 800 requests for assistance each day,” added Mr Casey.
“It’s a time that all staff and volunteers are really put to the pin of their collar to react to all of these requests and we’re here to help.”