• We donate items out of our stores directly to low-income people. Last year, through a voucher system, we gave away nearly $500,000 worth of clothing, furniture, bedding and household items.
• We operate the largest food pantry in Dane County. Last year we helped over 64,000 people -- including 28,000+ children -- with food value at $1,500,000.
• In Dane County, we are the principal source for furniture given directly to people transitioning from homelessness. Last year, we gave away more than $232,000 in furniture and bedding.
• We operate a charitable pharmacy to help people who lack medication coverage and are unable to afford prescription medicines to treat their chronic or acute conditions. We provided $358,000+ in pharmaceutical assistance last year.
• It’s typical that about 60 men, women and children reside in housing the Society of St. Vincent de Paul offers in Madison. We operate Port St. Vincent de Paul (a home for men) and St Elizabeth Ann Seton House (transitional housing for women and children).
• We run seven Dane County thrift stores – three in Madison and one each in Stoughton, Sun Prairie, Verona and Waunakee -- where people of all means can find bargains on clothing, furniture and household items and more.
• Funds raised from our stores’ sales of donated goods underwrite much to the charitable aid we offer. Generous financial donors also help significantly in meeting the many needs we address.The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is one of the longest-serving charitable organizations in the world. The Society was founded in 1833 in France by six university students. Committed to offering person-to-person service to people who are poor, suffering or forgotten, the Society those young people founded rapidly spread across Europe, reached the United States by 1845 and was operating in Milwaukee by 1848.

Working for Nine Decades to Alleviate Local Poverty

A membership organization, the Society began working in Madison in 1925 with two parish-based groups of members serving their neighbors in need. Today, programs the Society operates in Dane County include a large customer-choice food pantry, a charitable pharmacy, storage for the goods of persons who are homeless, seven thrift stores offering direct charity, housing at Port St. Vincent de Paul and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton House, and several other forms of assistance for people struggling with poverty.

More than 400 St. Vincent de Paul members serve through 18 member groups (“conferences”) around Dane County. These volunteers continually strive to carry on the compassionate work begun when our founders formed the Society in France more than 180 years ago. We operate locally as the District Council of Madison, Inc., Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Services our Society provides are offered without regard to race, ethnicity, religious belief, gender or other characteristics unrelated to the need we encounter among those we are privileged to help.