A Visit to St. Vincent de Paul

Editor's Note: This is reprinted from the St. Vincent de Paul blog at http://www.svdplou.org/blog.html. Students in five of teacher Angela Lincoln's social justice classes recently toured the St. Vincent de Paul campus, including the Ozanam Inn men's homeless shelter and St. Jude Women's Recovery Center. A few of the students were invited to blog about their impressions.

St. Vincent de Paul was truly eye-opening for me. It's one of those experiences that doesn't come around everyday, and I'm very grateful to have been able to go there and witness homelessness firsthand.
There were many things that affected me, but perhaps most prominent in my mind is listening to our speaker share her story. In my family, we have a cousin who struggles with heavy addiction and it was refreshing to know that there are services out there that are more than willing to help whoever they can.
I'm grateful to have such a wonderful service center in our city that is fighting to help relieve homelessness, especially in this economic decline. Finally, I'm more than honored that the people there were willing to share their personal stories, which led me to be very impressed by their faculty, staff, and clients.
-- Chloe Zoeller