ST VINCENT DEPAUL PLACE MIDDLETOWN INC

In 1980, two Sisters of Mercy, Sister Carol Beaudoin, RSM and Sister Patricia McKeon, RSM were concerned that during the downsizing of the Connecticut Valley Hospital many discharged people with mental illness were becoming homeless. With the help of the Diocese, St. Vincent de Paul Place was opened at 617 Main Street, Middletown, offering shelter, food and access to community services. SVDM's mission then and now is "to provide food, shelter and basic human services to poor and homeless individuals regardless of race, creed, natural origin, criminal history or recidivism."
I. Soup Kitchen, 617 Main St., Middletown, serves 1,085 non-duplicated individuals about 100,000 healthy meals, 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Sunday throughout the year. They will receive three healthy meals each day, including fresh greens from our bar.
Through the Soup Kitchen, we encourage people to participate in a series of healthy, productive activities, leading to greater self-esteem, and a reduction in drug/ alcohol use.
Some of these micro-programs include:
The Clean Crew: One day a week, six of our guests sign up to pick up trash up and down Main Street. Each worker wears an SVDM vest and earns a $20 gift card. A staff member who engages clients in a recovery conversation leads the team as they clean. This program is in support of our downtown Main Street to keep it and to be good neighbors.
II. Community Assistance Program
Dining Room Outreach: Guests in need of services or linkage to other assistance in the community can meet with one of two outreach workers right in the soup kitchen dining room or at our Amazing Grace Food Pantry, 16 Stack Street. A licensed clinical social worker, employed by River Valley Services mobile crisis unit, serves two days a week in the soup kitchen dining room. She can enroll guests into detoxification and mental health programs in our community. We anticipate that 10 people will be enrolled in the year.
A case manager is available at Amazing Grace Food Pantry, 16 Stack Street, five days a week to provide help and referrals for immediate shelter, medical assistance, food stamps, and applications for long-term housing. We anticipate that 50 people will receive help to overcome addition, homelessness, poverty, and mental and physical crisis. 70 will receive assistance with Department of Social Services SAGA, Social Security benefits and disability forms.
Middletown Free Clothing Program: Folks in need of clothing are able to shop with dignity, on their own, at the local Goodwill store. Generally, a person is referred to us through outside agencies such as social workers or nurses at local schools, intake programs at the local hospital, homeless and family shelters, and churches. If a person comes to us requesting clothing without a caseworker or manager, our staff is able to assess the person or family’s current situation to see if we might be able to address other issues they may be facing.
We distribute between $300 and $800 worth of free clothing vouchers each month to people in need of clothing. During fall and winter months when children are going back to school and warming shelters are open, the demand for vouchers is higher, near $1,000 per month. People using warming shelters often do not have access to proper storage of their belongings and clothing is often lost or stolen.
How we get the vouchers- There are two ways that SVDM gets vouchers to distribute to people in need. First, the community at large is asked to contribute used clothing and household items to Goodwill Industries, using a card identifying SVDM as the referring agency. Once a month, Goodwill Industries tallies up the donations, and sends us vouchers for free clothing based on the amount of donations received. The second way is that we seek financial donations from donors like you to buy vouchers from Goodwill Industries eighty cents on the dollar, to make sure we have enough to meet the need throughout the year.

III. Amazing Grace Food Pantry, 16 Stack St., Middletown, is open for in-house shopping.
Wednesday and Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. People can shop twice a month receiving 8 days’ worth of food or 20 meals a month. We anticipate serving over 663,500 meals a year to an average of 2,200 individuals or 1,000 households per month. This translates to 22,000 meals each month. We anticipate serving an average of 1,280 adults, 720 children and 400 seniors per month.

An outreach worker from Catholic Charities assists about 20 people each month find helpful resources in the community for immediate shelter, medical assistance, food stamps, and applications for long-term housing, Department of Social Services SAGA, Social Security benefits and disability forms.
Community Health Fairs- we participate in public health and school fairs to distribute food and information about community resources throughout the year. At AME Zion church’s back to school fair, we supplied 910 ears of corn for visitors to take home. At the Beman Fair, we had six eight-foot tables and distributed an abundance of fresh fruit including pineapple, peaches as well as shelf-stable yogurt. People receive free healthy lunches and fresh produce.

Backpack Weekend Food Programs:
Every Friday morning, our food pantry assembles and delivers four-pound packages of healthy food to 475 students for their backpacks at eight of our city’s elementary schools and at our middle school.
Over the weekend, students have breakfast and lunch for two days, as well as healthy snacks, shelf stable milk and fresh fruit. Families of students also receive notices of events like the USDA Farm to Families distributions, and are encouraged to visit the Food Pantry to not only help drive down the cost of feeding their families, but also to access other community resources that they might find helpful.
At the high school, we provide two carts, “Middletown High School Pop-Up Market” on Fridays filled with healthy foods students can take home for the weekend. Two Master’s level dietician interns from the University of New Haven, and a Food Corp employee of the Middletown school system, monitor the carts and offer nutritional advice.
Overcoming Period Poverty: Period Poverty is defined as a lack of access to period protection. It affects millions of people around the world, even in the most economically developed countries. In the US alone, 1 in 5 girls have missed school due to the lack of access to period products — that is more than 3.5 million girls. We believe that a certain amount of psychological damage occurs before a student heads for the nurse’s office. Our plan is to make a self-selected choice of products available to students via an app on the individual’s phone. The student can pick from brand-named products. Once per month, a student submits an order which we deliver in an opaque bag (their name on the bag) to the high school the following Friday.

IV. We continue to provide Housing Supportive Services to 128 formerly homeless people; forty of whom live at Liberty Commons, 33 veterans at Shepherd Home and thirty-eight in scattered-site apartments throughout the cit. Six housing case managers work with our tenants to access mental health support, substance abuse treatment, medical and dental services, employment, and counseling and with other activities of daily living. People who have a history or drug or alcohol abuse, mental illness, gambling addiction or who are compulsive spenders need assistance to manage their funds in order to stay housed and pay for rent, utilities, transportation or other essentials. Through our Representative Payee Program, 35 people remain housed because their bills are paid and the remainder of their (disability) income is parceled out to them each month though SVDM. We manage over $485,000 in disability income every year.