Donegal Town’s SVP conference to celebrate centenary anniversary

St Patrick’s Conference of St Vincent de Paul’s thrift shop in Donegal Town is inviting the local community to celebrate their centenary year on Friday, June 27.

Celebrations will begin with a Mass service at St Patrick’s Church in Donegal Town at 7pm, followed by refreshments at the adjoining Parish Centre.

St Patrick’s Conference is a local group of volunteers dedicated to serving those in need within the Donegal Town area through the St Vincent de Paul Society. They were established in 1925 and opened the thrift shop on Water Street in 1986. 

The Society of St Vincent de Paul in Ireland is the largest, voluntary, charitable organisation in the country, providing practical support to those experiencing poverty.

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Miriam Finnegan, the President of St Patrick’s Conference, told Donegal Live of the importance of the group's work to the local community and the challenges they face.

She said: “It is of a vital community role in terms of supporting the most needy, or people entering into difficulty. We would help right across the board with people who struggle to make ends meet financially. We would offer friendship and support to people who may not have a lot of family support.

“The concept of St Vincent de Paul is visitation, and that involves visiting people in their homes and trying to assist in any way, often trying to negotiate entitlements and navigate their way through services.

“We do have a shop and the shop offers a bunch of items at very good cost, and is of great support to people who are on a budget or have no budget. We do plan on running a little centenary sale. 

“The whole community is welcome to come up to join us. The type of celebration will be to thank the donors. We have wonderful benefactors to the shop, but also, the members who have volunteered their time over the years. It is a huge commitment, so to say thank you to all of those.

“We have been building on what has gone on before. The shop was established in 1986 by two wonderful ladies, again, providing that within the community, and having the vision to do that was tremendous at the time.”

Miriam also said that she hoped the centenary celebrations could assist the organisation’s future. She commented: “One of the big challenges we have is to get volunteers. At the moment, we have 16 conference members, but by and large, a lot of us are retired or aging. Trying to get volunteers is a challenge.

“At the shop, we have 43 volunteers. It is a big machine that takes in the donations and manages the shop, so it is a continuous struggle to provide the service that we do, and get sufficient volunteers, but we have a lot of people as well.

“The celebration of our centenary, we would hope, would attract volunteers and bring attention to the work that we do.”