Vincentians from archdiocesan conferences host monthly giveaways in high-need Washington County
On a blustery December morning behind St. Stephen Church in Richwoods, a line of cars wound down the gravel road, looping through the cemetery and around to the volunteers waiting by the open back of a truck.
“Hey girlie, Merry Christmas!” volunteer Barbara Rulo greeted a woman in a festive, bright green sweater, leaning in the car window to chat as others loaded a tote bag of Christmas dinner fixings into her trunk.
Down the line, four men in bright blue Society of St. Vincent de Paul sweatshirts added a boneless beef round top roast to each bag, sending people on their way with a smile and a “God bless you.”
Since October, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s Archdiocesan Council of St. Louis and Vincentians from around the archdiocese have partnered with Richwoods-area volunteers to offer a monthly mobile food pantry at St. Stephen. Each month, a parish St. Vincent de Paul conference fills boxes with nonperishable food items, loads them into the truck and distributes the boxes to families in need.
Rulo, a longtime fixture at St. Stephen, coordinates local volunteers to assist and spreads the word about the distributions to Richwoods residents. (St. Stephen Parish was subsumed into St. Joachim Parish in Old Mines in 2023; Mass is offered in the church once a month.)
“This is an impoverished area where a lot of people are on government assistance,” Rulo said. “…There’s no work out here — the only thing that’s in this town anymore is the school.”
In Washington County, one of the poorest counties in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, 19% of families — nearly 1 in 5 — are food insecure, according to the Missouri Hunger Atlas. The halt in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits during the November government shutdown and other challenges faced by food banks and pantries have only increased the need, Rulo added.
The mobile food pantry came out of conversations with Southern Vicariate leaders and Washington County parishioners, said Julie Komanetsky, director of Vincentian services and interim executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Archdiocesan Council of St. Louis.
“We have just over 2,800 Vincentians across the archdiocese, and we are always looking for ways to increase their ministry and opportunities for them to grow in holiness through their service. And so part of that was, what might we do here (in Richwoods)?” Komanetsky said.
Vincentians from conferences at St. Vincent de Paul in Perryville, Assumption in Mattese and St. Simon in Green Park covered the first three months of distributions. Bringing resources to neighbors in need, face-to-face, is an important part of the society’s mission, Komanetsky said.
She hopes Richwoods is just a starting point for more Vincentian outreach to the outskirts. “If we succeed, and we have more conferences looking for opportunities, we know there are other rural areas we could service,” she said.
The Dec. 19 food distribution was a special Christmas giveaway, offered in addition to the regular mobile pantry date earlier in the month. For the past 12 years, Joan Swartz and Jim Long have donated hundreds of beef roasts and turkeys to be distributed from St. Stephen, the Rural Parish Workers in Cadet and St. James Parish in Potosi. This year, the St. Vincent de Paul Society council office supplied the sides and desserts to accompany the donated meat in Richwoods.
Swartz and Long, parishioners at Assumption in Mattese, started the David Long Foundation in memory of their son who died from cancer at age 19. They’d previously been involved in other Christmas charitable efforts in St. Louis, but found out about the great need in Washington County and felt called to respond.
“We kept delivering the week before Christmas. Our son’s birthday is Dec. 19, so our deliveries have coincided with Dave’s birthday the last few years,” Swartz said. “We decided this would be an annual thing we do in David’s honor.”
