180 Years of Serving Canada’s Most Vulnerable continues

The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul reflects on 180 years of answering the call one family at a time.

Our international organization started back in 1833 in France when our founder, Frederic Ozanam, along with five fellow students who were all in their early twenties were challenged as Catholics about helping the poor. Frederic rallied his friends and responded with “the blessing of the poor is that of God, let us go to the poor”. The young men realized that they needed a mentor and so elected Emmanuel Bailly, a 39 year old publisher whom Frederic knew, as the first President of the new Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and its first Conference. The Society kept growing to other countries in Europe and was introduced to Canada by Dr. Joseph Painchaud, who had just returned from his studies in France and started Canada’s first Conference in Quebec City in 1846. Later in 1850, Dr. George Muir founded the first Conference in Ontario at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto. The Conferences are made up of volunteers who are inspired to answer the call to serve those in “need”. As Christ himself said, “the poor you will always have with you”. The request for help usually starts with a call to a church which supports a Conference. The Society continued to expand across Ontario and Canada. Here in Ontario, Conferences first started in Hamilton (1865), Guelph (1872), Ottawa (1880) and Windsor (1896).

As Conferences grow in an area, they are then grouped together by their geography, and Councils are formed for ease of management. In 2025, across Canada 37,200 Vincentian volunteers spent 1.75 million volunteer hours in visiting and helping those who call on us. Due to the most generous donations from our congregations and supporters, we handed out $19 million(M) worth of foodstuffs as part of the $24M total assistance in serving 252,240 people which included 100,000 children during 173,105 visits to households and the homeless. Presently in Ontario, in 2025 we had 359 Conferences and Councils which consisted of 5000 Vincentians who spent 336,000 volunteer hours in visiting 37,000 homes and helping 66,000 adults and 40,000 children with $7.2M in food and $1,5M in merchandise. In addition, in Ontario our Society operates 27 Thrift Stores and 12 Soup Kitchens which served 28,000 meals in 2025. Our Society of Saint Vincent de Paul is celebrating 180 years of answering the call one family at a time across our country of Canada. We do so by following in the steps of Saint Vincent and our founder, Frederic Ozanam. In so doing, we adopt the Vincentian virtues of Simplicity, Humility, Gentleness, Selflessness and Zeal as we reach out to those seeking our help.

To celebrate this milestone here in Ontario, our Regional Council is planning a Fund-Raising GALA which will include a Dinner/Dance and Silent Auction to be held on Friday, September 18th at the Oakville Convention Centre. For tickets and sponsorships, contact wendy@ssvp.on.ca