What it is...
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is a college council made up of a team of students, faculty and staff of the university who exist to provide volunteer service to the Church and community. Based upon the philosophy of Blessed Frederic Ozanam and the spirituality of St. Vincent de Paul, the group works with local organizations to serve the needs of those who are less fortunate in our community.

Ongoing service projects include working with: 7-Hills Homeless Shelter, Habitat for Humanity and the Children's House.

Our 7-Hills Cook Days for the semester are on Saturdays: February 23 is the next scheduled date. We meet in the Newman Hall kitchen to begin cooking at 9:30am.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul provides a community support system for the volunteers and an environment for participants to open their experiences and talk about how they relate to the social teachings of the Church. Weekly Vincentian Reflections sent out to the list-serv and social outings are great ways to become part of the SVDP community.

You need not be Catholic to participate! Bring a friend!

When and where we meet...
One Sunday a month at 6:15pm in the Mother Teresa Room. Watch the bulletin and the calendar for specific dates!

For more information on how to get involved contact Aaron at astrobe@uark.edu or Vera at zawislak@uark.edu.

How SVDP Began
The St. Thomas Aquinas conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul was founded in 2004 when two students-Meagan Lauener and Joel Gallagher-felt that an important aspect of their service to the community was missing. That missing link was the spirituality behind the act of giving. With the guidance of Jack and Barbara Wright, two very supportive parishioners, Joel and Meagan spearheaded the formation of the St. Thomas Aquinas conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The key difference between typical. service organizations and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is the influence of the Vincentian Charism, which accentuates the act of breaking open the experiences with the poor in a group setting and gaining something from that reflection. As the group serves the poor, they discuss the spirituality behind it, the root societal causes of the circumstances of the poor and what can be done to ameliorate those problems.

Inspired by Gospel values, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a Catholic lay organization, leads women and men to join together to grow spiritually by offering a person-to-person service to those who are needy and suffering in the tradition of its founder, Blessed Frederic Ozanam, and patron, St. Vincent de Paul.