St. Matthew Catholic Church

St. Vincent de Paul Society

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is an International Catholic organization of lay people founded in France in 1833 by Fredrick Ozanam. The society seeks, in the spirit of justice and charity to help those who are suffering.

In the United States, the first conference was established in St Louis in 1847 and in Galveston, Texas in 1881. St. Matthew's has had an active conference since its doors opened in 1999.

The church office receives calls every day from people needing various kinds of assistance. One of our active members will call the office every day to pick up these calls.

Our society meets every Wednesday at 5:00 pm in room #11 in the church. If you would like to join, please attend the meeting or call the church office.

We gather information about the request for assistance and determine the need. We present our cases to the committee at each Wednesday meeting and decide how to go forward with each case.

We meet the requestors in their homes, at the church, or by phone to conduct a personal interview. This is an important part of our ministry. We never judge and are always available as time and resources permit.

We work closely with other churches and organizations within the community. We offer our clients additional resources such as Salvation Army, Longview Community Ministries, and Caring and sharing to name a few. Often we share in helping the same family. We also distribute food as a faith based partner with the E. Texas Food Bank of Tyler.

In the past years we have served hundreds of families and spent over $30,000 per year. The $30,000 came from donations from our parishioners.

We welcome any new parish member to our ministry.

For more information contact the director of this ministry who is listed on the Directory of Ministries page.