Society of St. Vincent de Paul seeks to serve Christ through neighbors
By Mary Clarkin
Facing eviction or a utility shutoff, the resident opens the door to find a pair of visitors from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
“As the door opens, we step aside and let Jesus enter first,” said Joyce Lies as she described being a Vincentian at St. Patrick Catholic Church, Kingman, where she serves as the parish’s conference secretary.
“When we can do that, I feel that that puts us on the right track to truly listen to their needs, their story,” she said. “That’s what it is all about. We do what Jesus would have us do.”
Spurred by Pastor Fr. Andrew Walsh, St. Patrick began forming a ministry to serve the poor in autumn 2022. By spring 2023, the new St. Vincent de Paul conference was circulating contact information to law enforcement, the hospital, and other locations through which it might reach people in need of help.
In 2025, other parishes launched their own St. Vincent de Paul conferences. Holy Family Conference encompasses Holy Name Catholic Church, Winfield, and nearby St. Mary Catholic Church, Oxford. Like Fr. Walsh, Fr. Clay Kimbro, pastor in Winfield and Oxford, had previously served in a parish with a St. Vincent de Paul conference. Fr. Ben Green, a Diocese of Wichita priest currently assigned as pastor of the Diocese of Dodge City’s St. Dominic Church, Garden City, and St. Stanislaus Church, Ingalls, also had previous experience with St. Vincent de Paul and urged parishioners to form a conference. It is the only one in the Diocese of Dodge City, indicates the conference’s president, Christine Schmidt.
Laypeople carry out the Vincentian mission through person-to-person visits with those in need, regardless of their faith.
“It’s more than just handing out a check and helping them to pay their rent. It’s developing a relationship and letting them know that somebody cares about them,” Schmidt said.
In acknowledgement of scriptural commands to love one’s neighbor, Schmidt explained, conference members refer to those seeking help not as “clients” but “neighbors.” Furthermore, St. Vincent de Paul, patron saint of the international ministry that began in 1833 in France, said we must love our neighbor as “the image of God and the object of his love.”
Blessedly, reports Audree Gottlob, president of the Winfield conference, no one has been turned away for lack of funds. Needs run the gamut, from rent and utilities to food and transportation, Schmidt adds.
Typically, each conference sets guidelines, such as a maximum of $120-$300 per household per year for assistance paid directly to a utility or landlord. In some cases, a conference will request donations from other conferences to cover an urgent, high-cost need. Frequently, Lies said, the Kingman conference has helped other conferences – or has been about to, only to learn that other conferences jumped in and covered the request.
Around Christmas, she recalls, conference members made quite a few visits and gave out significant sums of money. “We were thinking, ‘Oh, wow,’ and then an anonymous donation came in that pretty much covered everything. It’s like God’s taking care of us right there,” Lies said.
The agenda at a recent meeting of the St. Vincent de Paul conference in Winfield included going over the first chapter of Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation calling on all Christians to love the poor, Gottlob relates. That is “to remind us why what we’re doing is crucial,” she said.
There are about 17 active St. Vincent de Paul conferences in the Wichita district, stretching from Hutchinson to Arkansas City and from Kingman to Andover. Combined, they carried out 1,471 home visits in 2025, and provided $740,748 in rent and utility assistance, reports Jim Ernstmann, council president for the Wichita district. That was down from 1,567 home visits in 2024, but up from that year’s $559,392 in rent and utility assistance.
A conference requires ongoing reliance on volunteers and donations or fundraising. A couple of parishes in Wichita no longer have an operating conference.
“Charity work doesn’t come without a challenge,” said Schmidt, adding that the Garden City conference, which has received input from its brethren in Wichita, is trying to grow “wisely and efficiently.”
As home visits conclude, Lies notes that members are sure to pose one final question. “Is it OK if we pray with you?”
“No one has ever said no,” she said.
Anyone wishing to become involved with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at their parish should contact the parish office. If your parish does not have a St. Vincent de Paul conference, please consider contacting Jim Ernstmann at [email protected] about starting one.
Mary Clarkin is a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Conference at St. Anne parish in Wichita.