The Society of St. Vincent de Paul will celebrate their 175 years of contributions to charitable giving tomorrow, April 23, 2008. It is truly amazing that this group founded almost 2 centuries ago by a 20 year old French student named Frederic Ozanam would still be helping the lesser fortunate in communities around the country and world. One of the contributing factors to this long time charitable giving success have been the countless motivated people that want nothing more than to help those in need.

Ozanam originally started the St. Vincent de Paul Society so that he and his friends could give back to the community through religiously motivated acts of kindness. Fast forward 175 years and here we are. I bet he never imagined a blog would focus on his charitable giving society. Religion now only holds partial bearing on the actions SVdP takes. No matter what an individual’s religious beliefs are the bonding force is the want to help others in need. As long as this kind of thinking continues I see the SVdP society continuing for another century.