As you saw in our last blog post by Phil Hanus, the Men’s Shelter of Delaware County received a Systemic Change grant from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s National Office. "Just what is systemic change," you ask? I am going to attempt to explain just what that means to you.

The Vincentian Family of North America has defined Systemic Change as:

Systemic Change among those living in poverty aims beyond providing food, clothing, shelter and alleviating immediate needs. It enables people themselves to engage in the identification of the root causes of their poverty and to create strategies, including advocacy, to change those structures which keep them in poverty. Systemic Change requires transforming attitudes.

Or – to put it more simply – “systemic change happens when change pervades all or most of the system leading to change in the system itself.” Well, my 3^rd grade vocabulary teacher would not like this definition because the definition used the word being defined.

We are proud to announce that the National Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in the United States has awarded us a grant of $10,000 dollars through its Systemic Change Grant Program.   

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is well known in communities for their direct work in alleviating immediate needs such as food and rent.  In fact, in 2019, St. Mary’s parish in Delaware gave a total of $78,066 that was spent on rent and utility assistance as well as car repair, medical expenses, food, and funeral expenses.

It is not as widely known however, that programs that target root causes of poverty are also a core value of the Society.  The awards committee felt that we had a compelling program with a long-range vision to move men back into the community by offering a safe place to live in conjunction with programs that helped break the poverty cycle and restore them as self-sufficient members of the community.  It was also important to them that we were collaborating with  other community-based organizations with similar aims.

These funds will be a big help in getting this program firmly launched. We are very grateful for their support.