Catholic Diocese of Spokane, Washington

From the

Official News Magazine of the Diocese of Spokane

(From the Feb. 7, 2008 edition of the Inland Register)

A funding crisis has forced Spokane’s St. Vincent de Paul Society to close its Family Service Center on Feb. 29.

“This has been such a difficult decision” for St. Vincent’s Board to make, said Board president Michael Cain. “We have explored every avenue and crunched every number to find some way out of this, but it just isn’t there. We are sad about the loss of service and worried about the future of the 60,000 people we usually feed.”

Cain cites several reasons for the board’s decision to close St. Vincent de Paul in Spokane. Factors include declining membership in the local St. Vincent de Paul Society, (mirrored by many other service and fraternal organizations across the country, and competition with other charities for finite resources.

Recent efforts to fund-raise and ignite community awareness have produced many new friends and much goodwill toward the local Society, but not enough income to continue operations.

“This moment has been coming for some time,” said Cain. “We finally needed to acknowledge a situation that had tremendous need in one hand and not enough in the other. We are deeply grateful for the support many have provided us, both recently and in the past.”

While the Family Service Center will close, the Society itself will continue in Spokane, serving the poor on a smaller scale through the various Catholic parishes.

After closing the Food Bank on North Regal and Trent, clients will be referred to Second Harvest and the Salvation Army, which will do their best to serve thousands of additional clients.

St. Vincent de Paul has been the largest emergency food provider in Eastern Washington. The Service Center has fed the working poor, those living on fixed incomes and families in crisis.

In the past year the Family Service Center has survived with four full-time and three part-time employees who have given their heart and soul to the community.