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'justice prevails' as funds are raised for st. vincent de paul

Story by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

After CSI Belleville solved its case April 2 at the St. Vincent de Paul Society’s annual dinner theater, the proceeds amounted to more than $30,000 to be used to support the St. Vincent de Paul Soup Bus and Cosgrove’s Kitchen, Gerry Hasenstab said.

The event is the Society’s largest fund raiser, and it is also sponsored by Western Catholic Union, a fraternal organization, with Marian Mueth as its local chapter president. This year, Mueth was honored as the fraternalist of the year.

While the money will bolster those two ministries, the cost of doing business continues to go up, Hasenstab said.
“The Kitchen feeds an average of 5,600 people per month, with meals served six days a week,” he said.

On holidays, hundreds of meals are served and taken to those who are homebound. The soup bus is taken out by various groups on weekday evenings to serve the poor in the metro area, and all of the food, paper products and utensils are provided for those who eat on the bus or in the kitchen.

The biggest expenses are at the kitchen, Hasenstab said because they not only provide the meals but they pay for utilities and an employee to work there.

A number of parishes provide casseroles that parishioners make, are then frozen and used during the year.
“We couldn’t make it without the casseroles,” Hasenstab said.

The price of gasoline will figure into the cost of feeding the poor because the bus gets about six-seven miles per gallon, Hasenstab said.

However, “the bus doesn’t go too far,” so that helps, he said. More and more people are seeking food through the various Society programs, and Hasenstab said he has some concerns about this summer.

“Benefits are being cut and unemployment is running out,” Hasenstab said. “I’m afraid it will be a very angry summer — the heat and frustration contribute to the anger.”

In order to help the Society, The Messenger will collect paper products to deliver to the kitchen and the bus.
Those paper products include paper plates, 8-oz. plastic cups, plastic utensils, paper towels and napkins.
Products can be brought to The Messenger office at 2620 Lebanon Ave., in Belleville.

For more information, please call 233-8670.