A Glance Back...

Procrastination: that buzzword which sums up the life of many a student is doing its rounds as coursework deadlines loom and revision timetables appear. Yet nobody can accuse SVP MUSCC of taking a backseat, as this week we have been as eager as ever to take practical action to help the most vulnerable. As the week draws to a close, this is an apt time to look back and reflect upon the work that SVP has been doing over the past few days.

Monday and Tuesday evening saw groups of student volunteers bracing themselves against the cold weather to give out soup, sandwiches, chocolate, crisps, tea and coffee to the homeless people of the city. 23 rough sleepers were met on Monday; 21 on Tuesday, and in addition to the food, blankets and clothes which were distributed, we were able to chat with the people we met, listen to their stories and offer long-term help where we could. Amongst the volunteers who helped out were newcomers Martina, Katie and Jaya - gratefully welcomed into the SVP community and invaluable to our work!

Coinciding with Tuesday's soup run was L'Arche Manchester's community meeting at their 'Heathside' house in Didsbury. A group of 3 volunteers headed by Fr William, our spiritual director, and our President Bradley attended the meeting to convey our support for the budding L'Arche community. News of great joy was received that night - L'Arche are to open their doors to their first core members in late April/early May 2013!

Some of the elderly residents of St Joseph's Nursing Home were visited by volunteers on Wednesday and Friday. As ever, these visits were fruitful for both those visiting as well as those being visited; matter-of-fact conversations tend to be opportunities to share laughs with the people we visit, yet are also surprisingly touching. Lucy and I went to visit Aileen, a lovely lady who is approaching the ripe age of 100! After having a fall recently, and having only just been released from hospital as a result of it, Aileen expressed relief and gratitude that she had company as, in her words, "a change is as good as a rest!"

Lastly, (but by no means least!), Cornerstone homeless shelter was attended by new volunteers Badjinca, Jean and Frank, whilst steps are being taken to set up a bank account for our long-term food bank project, which will be run as part of the Trussell Trust Food Bank scheme.

All in all, a very productive and busy week! Onwards and upwards...next stop, Fish and Chips fundraiser event! (Friday 1st March, 7pm at the Chaplaincy, see you there!)

A Long Time Coming

Our blossoming relationship with L'Arche Manchester has grown from a seed planted nearly a year and a half ago by Community Leader Kevin Coogan. Having been reading through their blog www.larchemanchester.blogspot.com I stumbled across a short post about Kevin's talk to the students of Manchester Universities' Catholic Chaplaincy at the 7pm student Mass in November 2011.

I gave a talk to the student Mass on Sunday night at the Holy Name opposite the Student Union building. What a joy! Back where I studied for my degree (1988 to 1991) and what a long time ago that seems. I got a great reception from the students and we are looking to develop a bit of a partnership between ourselves and the student SVP (St Vincent de Paul) group. Since then I've also had a couple of calls from people interested in finding out about becoming an assistant in the community so watch this space! (Kevin Coogan L'Arche Manchester)

Discoveries such as these reignite my hope that the work we do is making a difference and will continue to do so. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the short term objectives (such as how many homeless people we feed in one night) and forget about long term objectives (relief of poverty over time). 

This shortsightedness is inevitable, I believe, when looking at our work purely from the perspective of a night-by-night basis. However, our volunteers were overjoyed to see that a man who we had referred to external agencies was no longer in his usual spot some 2-3 weeks after we referred him. Clearly by putting ourselves out there we can provide both short term and long term relief.

SVP MUSCC members with L'Arch Manchester house plant!

Kevin's post has made me realise that whilst currently work towards our ongoing Food Bank project may seem to be going frustratingly slowly, a year or more from now hopefully this seed that we have planted will have flourished in a manner similar to the SVP MUSCC / L'Arche Manchester relationship.

Bradley Taylor
President of SVP MUSCC

Reckless Caring

The news we had all been waiting for, nay, hoping for, finally came last night at the L'Arche Community meeting at their house in Didsbury. After months of building, preparing, praying, joys and disappointments,fundraising, liaising with social services and rallying support: community leader Kevin Coogan announced that the first core members for the Manchester house would finally be arriving at the house in late April!

Naturally, the student volunteers representing SVP (as well as Fr William, our spiritual director) were delighted to hear this news. It came at the tail end of a community meeting that had centred around testimonies of residents and support workers visiting from the Preston and Liverpool L'Arche houses. Core members had the opportunity to voice their opinions and experiences of day-to-day life within a L'Arche community, giving a great insight into the workings and variations to be found within each individual branch community of the international organisation. Listening to the stories of the  personal struggles and hurdles that these communities overcame in the process of getting established was clearly something that the Manchester group could identify with, and served as encouragement to keep striving towards the goal in sight.

With setbacks varying from burglaries of the house to social services delaying funding of residents; the journey has not been an easy one for L'Arche Manchester, and there are inevitably going to be challenges for the future too. Does that ever discourage them from being optimistic about the work that they do? Not by the looks of things! Kevin is due to give a talk at the upcoming 'Seeds of Liberation' Student Christian Conference at St Peter's Chaplaincy on 2nd March; the name of his talk: Life at Close Range: Spontaneous and Reckless Caring. L'Arche support workers and volunteers are a witness of truly Christian compassion and untiring hope -it is this passion which enables them to care recklessly for the people entrusted to them.

May we at SVP all have a share in this passionate and 'reckless caring' for those we encounter in our outreach.

For more information on the Seeds of Liberation Conference, please visit www.movement.org.uk/seedsofliberation

For details about L'Arche, visit L'Arche Manchester

Pancake Day Fundraiser makes the NEWS!!

Hot from the press of the Independent Catholic News:

With Shrove Tuesday just around the corner, students at Manchester Universities’ Catholic Chaplaincy are getting geared up for one of their most popular events of the year – the Pancake Day charity fundraiser. The Chaplaincy is home to a vibrant ‘SVP 1833’ (St Vincent DePaul) Society. Under the spiritual guidance of the newly re-instated Jesuit chaplains, the student volunteers are expanding in numbers and dozens of new, exciting projects are emerging.....

....For more information visit the Independent Catholic News Website

L'Arche Boogie Night

Boogie Night at L'Arche

A group of gleeful children playfully giggling and squealing outside a secluded Church hall doorway greeted our group of faithful SVPers last Friday, as we all wondered "have we come to the right place?" Armed with our contribution to the buffet (for those curious amongst you- sausage rolls and crisps), searching for any signpost that would hint at the L'Arche Boogie Night which we were attending for the very first time, we had not expected quite so many children.

It turned out that, yes, we were in the right place. And no, L'Arche Boogie Nights aren't just attended by L'Arche core members and support workers. They are an altogether more family-oriented affair. SVP have been making contacts with the newly established L'Arche community in Didsbury for some months. L'Arche is an organisation that strives to create faith-based communities for learning disabled people to live in as valued members within a family atmosphere. This ethos was clear to see at the Boogie Night, with core members (i.e. those with learning disabilities) dancing the night away with staff support workers, as well as welcoming in guests and chatting animatedly with them.

Held at St Cuthbert's R.C. Church in Withington, this night was an opportunity for SVP to make further connections within the L'Arche community -we had the chance to sit and talk with the chairman of the committee, for example - whilst having a bit of fun too. With a fully licensed bar, and a DJ blasting out cheesy chart songs for people to bop to on the dancefloor, as well as a buffet stacked with delicious treats and homemade cakes, this SVP outing felt considerably more informal than usual. A group of SVPers could be seen boogieing away on the dancefloor and one of our newest volunteers, Hanny, siezed the chance to learn a few tips from the DJ and spent most of the night spinning records for us to dance to!

It wasn't all play though.

L'Arche are still awaiting the go-ahead from the authorities to be able to begin housing core members, but events like this enable the community to get together and celebrate the work that they are anticipating beginning. It is also a great way to  unwind and forget the stresses of the red-tape and refocus. SVP members attended in the hope of showing our moral support for L'Arche and helping in any practical ways that we can, even if that is simply lightening the workload of Boogie Nights by helping to clean up afterwards. Practical action to help L'Arche is something that SVP are committed to; we recently held a massive Shrove Tuesday pancake sale at which volunteers cooked and sold pancakes all day long. The proceeds of the sales helped to fund any necessity items for the L'Arche house. Building a relationship with L'Arche is proving to be a source of great joy for members of our SVP, and this joy is something that we have learnt from L'Arche. It seems to be a vital component of their very existence -and it is infectious.

The spirit of childlike glee that met us at the door on our arrival summed up much of the evening for us volunteers - we had perhaps not expected to have quite so much...well, FUN!

For more information on L'Arche Manchester, visit http://www.larchemanchester.org.uk/ or for a summary of L'Arche visit our own page here

Welcome....

...to the new MUCC SVP blog.

Articles about our work with the homeless, elderly, disadvantaged youth and learning disabled.