Council executive director works to extend outreach throughout diocese
Dan and Holly Kearns were looking to get involved in their parish. It was two weeks after they and their three daughters had moved from Florida to Glen Allen in early 2016, and they were interested in the Appalachian twinning ministry at St. Michael the Archangel.
They went to the church the night the ministry was scheduled to meet, but no one was there. As they wandered among the meeting rooms, they met Deacon Andy Cirmo, who invited the couple to join his wife, Nancy, and him as they were in a discussion with others about forming a St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) conference in the parish.
In what Kearns describes as “the Holy Spirit at work,” he recalled Deacon Cirmo asking, “What are you looking for?”
“I told him, ‘We want to get involved. We want to help people directly,’” he said.
The couple listened to what the group was undertaking, and Kearns told the deacon, “This is perfect.”
Key is spiritual growth
A certified public accountant, Kearns came to Virginia to continue working for the United Way as chief financial officer and chief operating officer, something he’d been doing for five years. But as a Vincentian, Kearns wanted to do something else.
“I had been doing fundraising; I’m a finance guy. ‘I don’t want to be in charge of workers,’” he recalled telling Deacon Cirmo. “’Let me go out and help people. That’s what I’m missing at United Way. I don’t help people directly.’”
In fall 2016, the SVDP conference at St. Michael the Archangel became only the second one in the diocese whose patron is St. Vincent de Paul. Kearns was elected president; Deacon Cirmo served as spiritual advisor.
During its first five years, the conference built its outreach upon what Kearns termed an “intentional spiritual element.”
“We start with the spiritual. A lot of people come to us and are like, ‘We just want to help people,’” he said. “Helping people is awesome, and we welcome that, but this is what goes along with it. By the way, if you’re not interested in the spiritual part, you’re missing the benefit of being a Vincentian.”
The first part of any SVDP conference mission statement, according to Kearns, is “the spiritual growth of our members in service to others. There is a large spiritual component to this.”
‘Incubator for programming’
As the St. Michael the Archangel conference grew from 20 members to more than 50, so, too, did the ability to reach friends in need. A concern among Vincentians doing home visits was the number of friends who would resort to “payday loans” when they ran out of money. Rather than help them, the loans, with their quickly compounding interest, put borrowers in deeper financial straits.
“When Village Bank agreed to work with us in 2020, one of our donors underwrote the $20,000 collateral needed to help launch it,” Kearns said, noting that the conference has done six loans and that it continues to help people through the program. (See https://bit.ly/ SVDPMiniLoanProgram).
Calling his conference “an incubator for programming,” Kearns has reached out to other conferences in an effort to share best practices and to foster collaboration on annual events like the Walk for the Poor.
As other parishes learned about SVDP and the work of its conferences, discussions began about the possibility of a forming a district council — a structure recognized by the national office of the SVDP that would further facilitate the Vincentians’ outreach to those in need.
An anonymous supporter of SVDP approached Kearns and asked how much money was needed to fund an executive director position. They determined at least $60,000 would be needed. The donor put up $10,000, and then COVID hit.
In early 2021, the donor asked Kearns about the job, and told him he would work to fund it under one condition: “It has to be you.”
“This man told me, ‘If I get involved, I really get involved.’ He started calling friends. The second gift bumped it to over $20,000, and before we knew it, he had raised about $35,000,” Kearns recalled. “Eventually we got it to $70,000.”
Seeing God at work
The New Jersey native described his 11 years of work with United Way as “a great experience,” but he welcomed the opportunity to apply that experience to SVDP.
“It’s like starting a business. It’s a desire for what you’re selling. From a Catholic point of view, it’s people saying we need to help the poor more,” he said. “Is there a customer base? Yes. Unfortunately, it never goes away.”
Kearns’ enthusiasm for the outreach is fueled, in part, by the feedback he receives.
“Someone asked me how long it takes for us to get back to someone. We do it right. We take a phone call and within three to four days people will have their electric bill paid,” he said. “People say, ‘That’s unheard of.’ I know, but we also have amazing volunteers, so those are the things that are really, really encouraging about this work.”
He noted that it is the spirituality that drives Vincentians — the name by which members are known.
“When I hear people talk about their spiritual life being changed by being a Vincentian, that is really encouraging,” he said. “Where we were first concerned was with people getting burned out, we see the other side of this: how all this can happen, and they see God at work and see it in their own lives. And what’s great is to see people who are joining a ministry that had never been in ministry before.”
Youth, young adults are welcome
As executive director, Kearns hopes to see more conferences established in parishes in order to extend the outreach of SVDP.
“Our biggest challenge is to get through to pastors and other parish leaders. They think, ‘We’re doing that.’ You’re not. This is different. You’re helping the poor and that’s awesome, but you’re not doing this, and we’d like to help you,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out a way to get in that door just to be heard.”
One of the ways in which Kearns hopes to engage parishes is that St. Vincent de Paul is attractive to young adults.
“We’re always glad to have the usual people who step forward, but now we’re starting to get younger people to come out. I see people in their 20s joining us,” he said.
To that end, he is encouraging the establishment of “young Vincentians” conferences in parishes that work with an established SVDP conference. There is one at St. Michael the Archangel and another in development at Holy Spirit, Virginia Beach.
Kearns is also reaching out to the Catholic high schools in the diocese, already having met with administration at Blessed Sacrament Huguenot School where Holly Kearns teaches.
“How do we grow Vincentians? How do we get youth to understand what being a Vincentian is about?” he said. “It’s about spirituality, service and leadership. Young Vincentians can be middle school and high school. We have them do service projects, and we will teach them about being a leader in a non-profit, faith-based organization along with the spirituality that they’ll learn in being a Vincentian.”
Kearns hopes that Vincentian outreach will extend into the southwestern part of the diocese.
“If we can’t grow in an area, can we do what we refer to as ‘mission work’ there? That’s a new idea as far as doing one-off projects with resources that are already in place,” he said. “It’s about how do we reach the underserved in our diocese.”
Kearns said that when he is given the opportunity to talk to people about SVPD, his message is simple.
“It’s about the spiritual growth of members who serve others. We help the poor,” he said. “How many times do Catholics hear, ‘Reach out the poor more’? Well, here we are.”
Editor’s note: Kearns can be reached at [email protected].
Two-item wish list
As do most non-profits, the St. Vincent de Paul District Council in the Diocese of Richmond has a wish list — albeit a short one.
“We are hoping someone is willing to donate a small box truck,” said Dan Kearns, the council’s executive director. “It would be used by conferences throughout the diocese for picking up donations of furniture and then delivering it when there is a need among our friends.” (Vincentians refer to the people they serve as “friends,” not clients.)
The council is also in need of warehouse space in which to store the items people donate.
“Right now, there are people who want to donate items to us, but we don’t have a place to store them,” Kearns said. “If someone is willing to donate warehouse space in the Richmond area to us, we can certainly use it. It would be a blessing for our ministry.”
Editor’s note: Kearns can be reached at [email protected].