Generous locals make it a happy Christmas for Saint V de Paul

The Mullingar Conference of St Vincent de Paul is the “envy” of branches all over the Midlands thanks to the generosity of local people, according to Area President Enda Breslin.This year was the busiest Christmas in the history of the local Conference with the number of people accessing the organisation's services reaching record levels. However, local volunteers were able to rise to the challenge this year for one reason, he said, the kindness of local people.“We delivered over 400 hampers last year.Now when you say over 400 hampers, the Lyons Club and us split the town so that's only half. The Lyon's Club probably dealt with the same amount. The demand on our services were way way up, but so is the response of people.The response comes in the form of donations, individual acts of charity and the commitment of new members. It was easily busiest year and the graph is going up every year, but the response to the demands was equally as good.”The Area President said that he was particularly heartened by the public's response to his organisation's annual church gate collection last month, which was “well up on last year.”“We're the envy of other areas. The people of Mullingar are most generous. When we attend regional or national meetings we are the envy of other areas. We are very well supported. We can only be as good as the people that support it.” While he noted that St Vincent de Paul didn't like to single out individual acts of generosity, he said that he was personally touched by the actions of a number of local people and businesses.“One man donated ten Christmas dinners from a local restaurant and then the restaurant doubled it. Another donated €5000 for education. A lot of people rang up to see what we needed. One local company donated a couple of dozen of hampers. It's humbling what people do. I like to look at the positives at this time of year.”