St. Paul's Center

Every staff member can agree that moving a family into their new home is the best part of the job! With continued support from the community, we are able to fully furnish apartments and include all new household items for each move. As always once we move our families into their new homes we ask if they could describe their experience at St. Paul’s. This amazing mother said, “You guys practically are like family to me now and everyone was so supportive. You guys made my dream come true”. St. Paul's Center would like to thank everyone who helps make these moves possible and for continually bringing about change in our community!

When we move our families out, we ensure they are entering their new home with all the essentials to make their new house a home. Thanks to Beazley Insurance we now have a stockpile of move-out kits that will help alleviate the stressors on our families when they move. Thanks to our amazing friends at Beazley Insurance, each family that moves out going forward will be getting all brand-new household items.

As we have mentioned before, when families walk through our doors they become a part of our own families. Each family has their own story coming into St. Paul’s, but our goal is to have them leave with all the same experience. Yesterday our moms decided to get together and surprise our Associate Executive Director Shay with a feast, gifts, and a cake in appreciation for all she does. We are truly blessed to have such amazing, caring, and hardworking families under our roof. Even though we love moving our families out on their new journeys, seeing them go will be sad!

Here's another teaser for tonight's Couch Sale. Yup, we have Michael Kors. See you at 7pm!

Holy Cow! Tonight's Couch Party includes many different designers.

Here's a teaser for tonight's Couch Party!

Just a reminder - be ready for Bags & Bling Tomorrow at 7pm!

The kids are looking for something to do today. I have an idea - how about feed Lucy?

Lucy is lazy today, hanging out on her dog bed underneath Tracy's desk. She perked right up when the box of bones opened and she heard little feet coming her way.

We are deeply saddened and disappointed by yesterday's Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling on Johnson v. Grants Pass which overturned constitutional protections for people experiencing homelessness. SPC echoes Justice Sotomayor's statement in her dissenting opinion that in part read, today, the court unequivocally “abdicates” its “role in safeguarding constitutional liberties for the most vulnerable among us.”

This unconscionable decision endangers the lives of more than 653,000 people experiencing homelessness, exposing them to further harm and making it even more challenging to escape homelessness.

The Court's majority decision ignores compelling evidence that penalizing unhoused individuals with fines, arrests, and incarceration has been tried and repeatedly failed. The results of this decision will impose unnecessary costs on taxpayers and perpetuates a vicious cycle of poverty and housing instability, further burdening an already overtaxed criminal justice system.

With this Supreme Court decision, jurisdictions now have a blank slate to punish unhoused people while doing nothing to address the primary drivers of rising homelessness we are seeing nationwide and the severe shortage of affordable housing and services.

There are nonprofits and volunteers across the U.S. dedicated to serving this vulnerable group of folks. This will make our job even harder. Frankly, it's heartbreaking.

June 12th was the Zonta Club of Albany, NY awards dinner and it was our pleasure to again be a recipient of one of the awards. Charlee was able to attend and speak a little about St. Paul's and what we do. The Zonta Club is an amazing donor to our organization and many others. Striving to help women and children all over the capital region. Zonta Club of Albany, NY not only donates but also puts on a spring fling and fall festival for our mothers and children. It is our honor to work with such an amazing club.

The Community Loan Fund of the Capital Region has been a great friend to us - and they can be a great friend to entrepreneurs in need of business skills to be successful. Check out what is offered this month.

Finally - significant progress on our supportive housing for unhoused seniors! At 59% of construction completed, we can see our future. Most apartment walls are rocked and taped. Walk-in showers are being installed. Kitchen cabinets were delivered. Laundry room wiring is nearing completion. The elevator is being installed. The building’s exterior is so close to done and looks fabulous. The support services workplan and program budget have been approved and the contract for our operations grant is being finalized. We are almost there!

Seniors are a unique & growing homeless sub-population and we are excited about this unique program and the opportunity to serve seniors in need of stability later in life. It is the first in the Capital Region to focus solely on this vulnerable population.


Follow our progress on this new program!

It was made aware to our Associate Executive Director Shay that a young man who just moved out would love a suit for his upcoming middle school concert. To make this happen Shay reached out to a mentor program from Green Tech and various other places throughout the Capital City to make this happen. Sure enough, the check arrived, and this amazing young man was ready to get fitted for his first suit. This mentorship program also offered to assist with future celebrations and to mentor this young man as he grows up. We would like to thank everyone involved in making this young man's concert special!!

We need only 7 more vendors for this wonderful event. If you or anyone you know is interested in being a vendor please call Peggy Farrell at 518-424-3274!

Our amazing friends at Hope Lutheran Church who donate tons to our shelter are having a Vendor Fair on June 22nd from 9 am-3 pm. They would love a total of 25 vendors and right now they are at 17. This vendor fair will benefit all the mothers and children you see on this page daily! On the day of the Vendor Fair, our team will be there with a table set up to talk about what we do, why we do it, and how we do it if any are interested in meeting the team. Please reach out to Peggy and help support the community.

It was movie night at Emmanuel Reformed Church - Castleton! This church is the same church that through our huge Mother’s Day party on Saturday. It’s always a blessing to be able to load up the van for a fun night out with staff and our families. We cherish the small moments of watching our families eat popcorn and enjoy their favorite movies. officially starts in one hour and if you wish to support wonderful movie nights like this, please click on the link provided. Thank you to all who have given already!!

Support us here.
https://www.518day.org/organizations/st-paul-s-center

Sooo we were wondering why our donation tally was at $0 for the 518 Day fundraiser. They had our wrong banking information! Just like every nonprofit, there’s always something, right? We have fixed that issue and if you would like to donate again we would love that! Click on the link to finally be able to donate.

https://www.518day.org/organizations/st-paul-s-center

Our amazing friends at Hope Lutheran Church who donate tons to our shelter are having a Vendor Fair on June 22nd from 9 am-3 pm. They would love a total of 25 vendors and right now they are at 17. This vendor fair will benefit all the mothers and children you see on this page daily! On the day of the Vendor Fair, our team will be there with a table set up to talk about what we do, why we do it, and how we do it if any are interested in meeting the team. Please reach out to Peggy and help support the community.

Last week we posted a picture of a family signing a new lease on their home! Today the team officially moved that family out. With each move, you would think goodbyes would be easier… Buttt they are not! When we say farewell to our families, we ask how their experience was with us. Here is the quote from the wonderful hard-working mother we just moved out. “I am absolutely immensely grateful to have been offered to come to this place. Staff is extremely supportive and well trained.”

Without your help, we wouldn’t be able to provide these great donations to help transform each family’s new home. To continue to change the lives of so many women please go to www.518day.org/donate click donate then search SPC!

We hope you're all as excited for this week as we are. 518 Day of Giving is THIS SATURDAY. With four days to go, we're off to a great start. As of today, more than $45,000 has already been raised for nonprofits within the 518 area code! If you wish to donate to our agency please go to https://www.518day.org/ and find SPC! Please enjoy these photos of our amazing team and our donor Lisa from Lane Bryant who hosted a bra drive for our moms.

Happy Mother’s Day! These photos are from our amazing volunteer event we had yesterday!

Good and bad news! Our amazing interns are leaving us. These wonderful team members have completely helped transform our organization. Day in and day out they helped guide each mother and child throughout our shelter. Their journeys with us may have ended but the impact they have made will last forever! Support our organization by going to https://www.518day.org clicking donate and finding SPC!

Good news! 518 Day of Giving is the first online, regional fundraiser of its kind on May 18th. Each day leading up to the event we will be posting good news about what's going on at SPC. Today, we had a family sign a lease to their new home!! They will be moving out of the shelter in less than a week. Early giving for the event is now open and you can support our organization by going to https://www.518day.org clicking donate and finding SPC!

We need help! As you all know, we are a small staff so when we have to send out mass mailings it takes hours of work. St. Paul's Center would love it if we could have some volunteers come to the shelter this week and help staff stuff envelopes! Please email Andrew at [email protected] or call 518-434-2910 ext 103 if you are interested in helping the team.

Thank you to the Zonta Club of Albany, NY for bringing pizza, games for the kids, and gift cards! These amazing women love to sit down with our families and share laughs and stories for hours. The children also received Mother's Day kits that they could create for their moms. We always have amazing times with these wonderful volunteers and we are lucky to have them!

Huge shoutout to Girl Scout Troop #1744 for coming to our Shelter on Earth Day and working with our families and staff to clean up our property and the neighborhood area! The girls did a fantastic job, and we couldn't be more grateful.

We want to thank Troop Leader Erin Sinisgalli for making this happen. This troop has also collected various items for our Shelter throughout the past year. Thank you Troop #1744 for all you do for our families!

I had a GREAT day at The Vandy Thrift Shoppe on Friday. The staff and volunteers are so friendly and the items for sale are amazing. Please support the great work Vanderhyden does to benefit our community members by bringing your goodies in or volunteering.

Every year, the Rosary Altar Society from St. Jude the Apostle Church in Wynantskill blesses us with various gift cards for our mothers. These gift cards are absolutely fantastic because when our families move out we gift each family a card so they can purchase items to make their new house a home! We can’t thank the Rosary Altar Society enough for these amazing housewarming gifts for our families!

Tomorrow, our Executive Director Tracy Pitcher will be a Guest Cashier to help The Vandy Thrift Shoppe celebrate their 2nd year! As well as the Vanderheyden's 190th Anniversary!

St. Paul’s Center is now accepting donations of handbags as we prepare to revamp our previous event “For the Love of Bags and Bling”! We decided to change the name of the event and it will now be called “Sparkle, Style, and Shine for Shelter”.

If you or anyone you know has handbags that they would like to donate, please email Andrew at [email protected] so we can get our inventory in order! We could use all the help we can get in preparation for this event so if you’d like to volunteer your time please send Andrew an email.

Do you have teaching experience and a passion for working with children? St. Paul’s Center would love a tutor to volunteer for the children in our shelter. A current teacher or retired teacher is preferred. Our kids go through a lot of inconsistency and we would like to bridge the gap in their education as much as we can. Please contact Andrew Barnes at [email protected] or give us a call (linked below) if you are interested! Thank you 💜