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Stock photo provided by Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
Five months.
That’s how long Shareen and her daughter slept on a mattress on the floor after a tornado destroyed their apartment — and everything in it. No bed frames. No dressers. No couch. Just a folding chair and the empty feeling of an unfamiliar and unfilled place.
Disasters don’t end when the storm passes. They linger. In empty rooms. In lost confidence. In the creeping belief that maybe God has stopped paying attention.
Shareen didn’t know how she would rebuild. She was tired. Discouraged. And slowly losing faith.
Then Vincentians from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul showed up.
They brought furniture. They delivered it. They carried it inside. They assembled it. They brought bed frames, so the mattresses no longer had to sit on the floor. They provided vouchers and gift cards for bedding, pillows and clothing — those everyday necessities that quietly restore dignity and a sense of normal life.
And they brought something else, too: kindness.
“I had to move into this apartment in July after the tornado destroyed my apartment and furniture,” Shareen said. “I had a mattress for my daughter and me on the floor, and a folding chair — that was it for the past five months. I didn’t know how I was going to get any more furniture. By the grace of God, I was blessed by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, who not only helped me get some furniture but actually delivered it and put it together for me.”
What mattered most wasn’t just the furniture. It was what it represented.
“It makes me so happy because now I won’t be embarrassed to invite my family over,” Shareen said. “It means so much because I had lost faith in God’s care for me. But the people I met from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul showed me such kindness. And through that kindness, I realized that Jesus never left me.”
This is what your support does. It doesn’t just fill rooms. It restores dignity. It rebuilds trust. It reminds people — when they need it most — that they are not alone. For Shareen and her daughter, lives were rebuilt. And so was faith.
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