St Vincent de Paul - The Dalles

This is to remind you that this is the last week to sign up your child for "Shop with a Hero". School age kids 5th grade and below in need of school clothes should call the Salvation Army at 541 296-6417. This is a joint project with the Army and St. Vincent dePaul and local police, sherriff and fire departments.

When you become a Lion, you become part of a global network of volunteers working together to make a difference. Join us! Find Lions in your community: https://bit.ly/2WdOFDr

St Vincent DePaul will open warming place tonight at 6pm

It will stay open 24 hours a day during the blizzard
We will need assistance with staff, food,and supplies. If you are willing to help please let us know. Phone us at 541 296 9566 or respond to this .

News Release 1/2/24:
The Dalles Conference of St. Vincent de Paul Society is a non-profit
group made up primarily of volunteers and has been serving The Dalles
for nearly 40 years. Our mission is to serve the needs of the poor as
Christ served others. With our partner agencies, Community Meals and
Bread and Blessings, over 25,000 meals a year are served at our facility
to those in need in our community. St. Vincent de Paul has provided
household items, clothing vouchers, emergency hotel rooms, assistance
with transportation, funding for medications and other help to people
facing emergency situations.
Just under half of those we serve are temporarily or permanently
without shelter. We provide sleeping bags, tarps, warm clothing and
heat sources to help during environmentally challenging times. Our
Ministry building provides access to bathrooms, showers and
laundry—a means to allow our homeless citizens the ability to raise
their dignity with simple hygiene and clean clothes. Our facility is also
utilized by other agencies that reach out to those struggling with
mental illnesses and addiction to provide opportunities to those
wanting a better life for themselves. In addition, our facility has offered
the only winter shelter in The Dalles for over ten years.
On August 1, 2023 the City of The Dalles informed St. Vincent de Paul
that the Ministry building located at 315 W. 3 rd Street was creating a
“Public Nuisance.” The city cited 34 accounts of arrests/citations that
had occurred within 300 feet surrounding the building and concluded
that this was sufficient for establishing a “pattern of behavior in the
neighborhood.”
St. Vincent de Paul responded to the city with possible suggestions on
how to mitigate any harm to our neighbors in our mission of serving

those in need. Our suggestions were found insufficient and the City
filed their nuisance claim in court.
In an effort of cooperation, St. Vincent de Paul responded with a
request for mediation so that a mutually agreeable plan could be
worked out, enabling St. Vincent de Paul and the city of The Dalles to
work together to help solve this community crisis. The city rejected our
request.
With great sadness, the St. Vincent de Paul Society of The Dalles will
temporarily close its ministry building at 315 West 3 rd Street. Our
decision to temporarily close was difficult, but necessary for us to
negotiate with the city of The Dalles and hopefully avoid a costly legal
trial. We understand that the most fragile in this community will be the
ones who feel the most pain, and it is our hope that this action will lead
to resolving the city’s concerns quickly. Our last day of operations, until
further notice, will be January 5, 2024. We will close at 2:30 PM that
day.
Please note that only the St. Vincent de Paul Ministry building will be
closed; the St. Vinnie’s Thrift Store and Food Pantry located at 505 W.
9 th Street will continue to operate as usual.

WE ARE CLOSING

This facility, including all food
service, will end Friday, January 5 th
at 2:30 pm.

The City of The Dalles has filed a
“Public Nuisance” complaint
against us in court. We are
shutting down temporarily in
hopes of negotiating a solution
with the city. We would rather save
taxpayer dollars and St. Vincent
de Paul donations for serving our
community rather than funding an
expensive court battle.

God Bless everyone during these
troubled times!

We would lke to thank Mid-Mid Columbia Fire Rescue, Mid-Columbia Firefighters and The Dalles Lions for all their efforts to making this years ELFF food drive a sucess. All the food and money collected will go towrds providing food to both The Savation Army and St. St Vincent de Paul - The Dalles food bank, and will feed those in need this holiday season. God Bless

Please do not drop off items for folks when we are not open. Someone did today, and man folks went through and took what they wanted. The rest was left to get wet and thrown around. It did not necesariy get to those who needed it the most. Excess coats and other warm items can end up being sold and turned into alcohol or drugs. We are open Monday thru Thurs from 9 till 4:30 and on Fridays from 9 to 2:30l We do close daily for lunch from 12 to 1. If you phone during these hours, we are happy to meet you in the parking lot or on the side of the building to help you unload your donations. Our number is 541 296 9566.

We have a lady who is moving into an apartment after a long time. She has two children and is in need of beds. She needs two twins, and either a full size or queen. If you have any that you could donate, we can pick up. If you have any for a small price, we may be able to cover those.

You can find
angels all around us if you look hard enough. We have had a couple that have showen up around this time the last three years. Jennifer Ericksen Heredia and her daughter Nina, have done a bake sale with us as a benifactor again tis year. Yesterday Nina delivered a check for $950 which will buy a bunch of sleeping bags, tents, and tarps for the unhoused in our community. Thank you so much for your generous hearts toward those who have so little. God Bless

We have a person who lives in White Salmon who needs to go for treatment for two weeks. He needs to find someone to care for his Lab for that time. If you could help with this, pm us or call 541 296 9566. Thank you

What a great place we live in the gorge. The offers to help in the warming place this week have been overwhelming. I hope I have replied to everyone, to let them know that I thing we are now covered for this week. The winter continues for another three months, and I'm sure more assistance will be required. We hope to be better orgainized when the next cold spell happens, If you have already given us your phone number, thank you. If you would like to be on our list of helpers for the shelter, send us your number and we will contact you. If you have blankets, coats, shoes, or other warm items, you can drop them off at 315 W 3rd, Again, thank you for your kind response to help this homeless community.

We hope to keep the warming place going for at least the next four nights. We are really short of volunteers. The main need is to always have two folks here while people are sleeping. Once they are checked in, lights go out at 9pm and everyone settles down. If someone leaves after 9, they are not permitted to return. Only persons who can enter after that, are folks brought in by the police, who are in danger of freezing. Please give consideration to spending an evening and night assisting those on the street.

Due to the cold weather we are going to open the warming place for five nights starting tonight. We will only be able to do this if we get some volunteers to cover the nights. If you worked during the previous winters, we could use your assistance. We have already had one death from cold weather this week. The warming place operated with up to 150 volunteers in past year. Our giant staff of three, cannot pull this off without the community help. Contact us at 541 296 9566 to volunteer or if you have questions.

Holidays should be a time of joy and thanksgiving. For some people in our community, it is the most depressing and difficult time.

The Salvation Army and St. Vincent DePaul work together to make the holidays brighter for those in need in our community.

Haystack Broadcasting’s Helping Hands program will start on Wednesday, November 1st, and the following five Wednesdays in front of the old Salvation Army building on 3rd Street.

We will collect coats, new and lightly used clothing, toys, and money. We will be there from 7 to 9 a.m. to accept your donations and hand out coffee and doughnuts.

December 5th will be ELFF night at The Dalles Fire Station, where we will collect non-perishable items to fill the food baskets for Christmas.

Through September, our St. Vincent DePaul Service Center has served nearly 800 individuals who expressed needs. 233 are homeless folks with residence in The Dalles and our service area of Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, and Klickitat counties.

Please consider a monetary donation this holiday season.

Donations by mail can be sent to SVDP Box 553 The Dalles or use the donation tab on this post. God Bless

We would again like to recognize Cody Miller with Grocery Outlet for his tremendous support for the the SVDP Food Pantry in The Dalles. Cody offered his clients a $5 gift card if they donated $5 to the pantry in the month of July. Folks responded by allowing Cody to donate $3578 for the pantry. SVDP would like to thank Cody, Grocery Outlet, and this Community for your support.

We have Id turned in for Destinee Lynn Ross-Mann. If you know her call us at 541 296 9566

We have a mon and a child that just got a home through a long ago court case. She lives on $800 of SSI, and had to remove the contents due to cockroaches. She needs beds, refrigerator, stove, table and chairs, and furniture. She has her mom living with her , who just got a job, and will contribute to the expenses. If you have any items that would help fill this home,. please give us a call at 541 296-9566. We will make arrangements for her to contact you. Please be sure your donations are clean and bug free. God Bless

Next week will bring a late season blast of winter. Since there is limited housing for folks to get out of the cold, we would like your assistance in keeping people safe. We help with sleeping bags, tents, and tarps, but would really appreciate more gloves, and canisters of propane. Temperatures will plunge on Wednesday and remain fridged through Saturday. Items can be dropped off at the service center on 3rd street. We are located in back of the Alicia's bakery across from Old St. Peters Church. You can enter on Pentland street, or third street. Fence is shut but not locked during operating hours by bakery. Phone 541 296 9566 for assistance. Call when you get here and we will come and get your donations.

St. Vincent DePaul Service Center sends out their greetings to our fellow community as we recap the last year. It was indeed a busy year, full of changes, challenges, and support.

During the winter of 2021/2022 we were called upon to serve our less fortunate with the Warming Place for the first time ourselves! Our small staff of 2 and the board of 8, recruited a hand full of volunteers, and managed to keep the Warming Place open until March. We found that operating the shelter ourselves was beyond our capabilities and we notified the city and MCCAP in March that we would not be able to manage the program another winter, but we would again provide our facility for the use, and supply the cots and support the souls who endeavored to take up the torch during the winter of 2022/2023 with all the knowledge we had gained over the years, while supporting the committee who originally ran it over the past 9 or so years. The Warming Place was run by a committee of regular, local men and women (some were fit elderly and stayed up at night to watch over our houseless and knit) that had a volunteer base of 70 to 150. This large committee and volunteer base was able to handle the varying amount of houseless who used the Warming Place at our facility. Unfortunately, the committee and volunteers dissolved during the pandemic years. During the last two years MCCAP partnered with us in providing motel funds for the houseless during the extreme weather and Covid social distancing for both years of the Pandemic.

2022 continued to be a busy year. We happily served 890 individuals, with our various resources. This included 429 houseless and 461 fragilely housed individuals. 195 of those houseless folks had been students of schools in the Gorge area. We also have determined that many of the houseless, not deemed “local” due to being educated in other school systems, had lived here for 5 plus years.

With our partners, Bread & Blessings, and Community Meals we served over 36,000 meals. St. Vinnies Store allowed us to provide almost 600 vouchers for clothing, linen and household items to the fragilely housed and houseless in this community. In addition, we provided emergency housing to 83 people stranded, 101 gas vouchers totaling $1000, 100 propane vouchers, numerous bus tickets home, prescription med cost help, Emergency utilities assistance, 1584 showers and 980 loads of laundry and last, but not least, the 5000 people we served at our food pantry.

Our staff loves our houseless neighbors here and enjoy learning their unique stories. Vincentians are called “not to bring bureaucracy, only love”, so our goals for your houseless neighbors is and will continue to be helping them with the services we have to provide while pointing them in the right direction for self and situational improvement.

A shout out and big thanks to our supporting Angels; Big 5 who contributed boxes of warm winter socks and hand warmers collected from customers. Grocery Outlet customers who donated, and we received gift cards to assist both our service center and the food pantry. St. Peters Parish allowed us to have second collections during the year. The Seventh Day Adventists Church are faithful donators of feminine products and hygiene supplies. St. Vinnies Store in addition to allowing the vouchers, also asked customers to donate to SVDP. Nina Heredia, who is 12, for a second year, with her mother’s help, did a bake sale to raise money for sleeping bags. The past two years, she’s donated over $1700. Her mother, Jennifer Ericksen Heredia, also did a birthday wish list for us that raised over $500. Shari’s Restaurant staff, who took on feeding 65 people on the day after Christmas, while the rest of us where in a food coma, using their own hard earned funds.

Also, our thanks and appreciation goes out to the Angels who dropped off clothing, blankets, beanies, sleeping bags, socks, donated through Fred Meyers, Google Employees, Residents who just put a check in the mail, or dropped off cash and the volunteers who worked the food pantry, assisting clients with filling their carts, as well as stocking shelves and unloading trucks.

Community agencies that partnered with us last year were MCCAP, Center for Living, Bridges to Change, and One Community Health, who are always ready to help our houseless and fragilely housed neighbors when we ask.

It has been rewarding and inspiring to see this community work towards the health and wellbeing of our less fortunate and struggling community members this year. We are blessed to be a part of this community and look forward to serving you in 2023.

Shout out to The Dalles 7th Day Adventist Church for thier continuing support with donations of hygene supplies and warm necessities.

We would like to thank Big 5 for another great donation of sox and handwarmers. Every year they ask their customers to support us by donating a pair of sox and handwarmers. We really appreciate all their great customers that step up to help the homeless of our community. The next time you visit Big 5, give them a big thanks for their support of those who live on the streets of The Dalles

Helping Hands is a program sponsored by |Gorge Country Media, with The Salvation Army and SVDP as beneficiaries of the collection of coats, hats, gloves, money and food that goes to support the Christmas efforts in The Dalles. We are in front of The Salvation Army building on 3rd street every Wednesday thru November 30th, and on December 7th at Coastal Farm and Ranch. All donations stay in our area for local needs. On December 6th, will be ELFF at the firestation. In the past where fire trucks roamed the city collecting non perishable food items, we now ask that you bring your donations to the Mid Columbia fire between 5 and 9 on December 6th. We will have a live Nativity, Sparky, and Santa Claus as well as assorted guests. The food collected will be use for the holiday food baskets that will be distributed later that month. Please join us on Tuesday December 6th from 5 to 9.