Support our Appeal

Urgent Help Needed – Right Now

In the first week in April two SVP volunteers in Cork visited a family in financial trouble. Dad had lost his job and walked out; Mam still had her job, part-time, minimum wage for four hours a night from 8pm till midnight. It was Wednesday night, two nights to pay night and no food in the house - well there was half a sliced pan and while Mam didn’t mind eating dry bread and drinking boiled water (no teabags) the children needed more. So in utter desperation and for the first time ever she asked for help, she phoned the SVP.

The April Appeal 

This is reality for thousands of people living on the brink of poverty in Ireland today and we urgently need to raise funds in April to support families like this one.  The economic crisis has impacted on all of us but no-one has been worse affected than those who are experiencing consistent poverty – that means not having enough money for basic needs like fuel, hot water and food.  

SVP has seen a huge increase in people calling on us for help in regions like Dublin, Cork and the Mid-West.   SVP Dublin have seen a massive 40% increase in calls for assistance from January to March this year – that’s an extra 1,936 people calling the Society requesting help during that period.  Many of these calls are coming from families with young children; in fact 65% of calls in March were from parents with young families who were requesting help to pay for food, heating, mortgage payments or other basic necessities.

The Society of St Vincent de Paul is asking people all over Ireland to think of those less fortunate and to give what they can to help others.  Every donation counts at the moment and can mean the difference between us being able to buy bread, milk and cornflakes for a family like the one we visited in Cork recently – or not.

Please support our April Appeal and help people who are really struggling across Ireland.