Parishioners receive requests for food deliveries through the St. Vincent de Paul District Office and assign them to volunteer deliverers. Call coordinators agree to be on call one week per month.

Parishioners pack perishable and non-perishable food items from the parish Food Pantry and deliver to area families during the day. A home visit delivery usually takes about one hour and often includes conversation, an brief assessment of the family’s needs, and shared prayer to the extent that both the family members and volunteers feel comfortable. All food delivery volunteers work in pairs as they enter homes in the local neighborhood with the goals to listen, to learn, to provide emergency assistance, and to educate our neighbors about other available assistance programs. Training is provided for all new food delivery volunteers.

The Casserole Program is a weekly service for the Center for the Homeless and the YWCA. Families or individuals are provided with a pan and recipe and supply their own ingredients to make a large casserole and deliver it to church. These casseroles are used to feed the men, women, and children who live at the Center for the Homeless and YWCA. The parish office maintains a rotating schedule of volunteers. Please contact Dee in the parish office if you would like to join this ministry.

The Pack-a-Lunch Program provides 60 sack lunches three times a month to the Center for the Homeless. The lunches we provide go to the residents who go out and work in our community. Finding and maintaining employment is an integral part of overcoming homelessness. Many men and women at the Center are making progress towards the goal of self-sufficiency. Your participation not only helps to ease the Center’s tremendous task of providing 250 meals a day but also lets the residents know of our support as they continue to improve their lives and the lives of their family. Parishioners make sandwiches and assemble sack lunches for the Center for the Homeless. Instructions are available for all participants. Please contact Dee in the parish office if you would like to join this ministry.

Dismas House provides transitional housing and support services to men and women who have been recently released from incarceration. Parishioners prepare dinners and eat with the residents of Dismas House periodically throughout the year. These nights of fellowship are truly privileged encounters with those in our local community seeking to build better lives.

Christ the King partners with Clay Church to help make a great start to the new school year for children across the South Bend area. Local churches collect backpacks and other school supplies (pencils, erasers, crayons, markers, folders, paper) throughout the summer months for students most in need. A shopping list is provided, and donations can be dropped off in the vestibule of church. Volunteers are also needed at packing and distribution events.

The Giving Tree is a parish project that provides Christmas gifts for those who are experiencing some kind of poverty in the local South Bend community. The Giving Tree gifts are distributed to local families, nursing home residents, and disabled adults who otherwise would not receive any gifts at all. We regularly partner with Clay Relief, Catholic Charities, Dismas House, Hannah’s House, St. Margaret’s House, Women’s Care Center, Hope Ministries (Help with Love), Christ Child Society, Healthwin, and our sister parish of Corpus Christi in Bangladesh.

All parishioners are invited to sign up online through the Giving Tree registry at the beginning of Advent. All the necessary gift information will be listed online, and parishioners are responsible for bringing the gifts here to the parish on time.

Volunteers are needed to help our Giving Tree coordinators collect and organize gift requests, maintain the online registry, and purchase additional gifts with cash donations. Additional one-time volunteers are also needed at the close of the Giving Tree project to sort and deliver gifts that have been purchased and dropped off the parish. Please contact Linda Hatfield or Janis Emmendorfer for more information.

The holiday season can be a particularly difficult time for those experiencing financial need. At a time when we are reminded of Christ’s unfailing love for us, and his desire to dwell in this world with us, others can feel weighed down by financial burden or isolated from those they love. We hope to meet some of these needs and share God’s love with our community members by providing holiday food baskets for families. Baskets are delivered around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and volunteers are needed to help pack and deliver the baskets to local homes. This is a wonderful way to share Christ’s love with those in need, especially around these special times of year.