St Vincent de Paul Society

About Vinnies

We sell second hand donated goods including men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, accessories, bric-a-brac, manchester, toys, books, media, and lots more. We also accept good quality, undamaged and clean donations. Please shop and donate during our opening hours listed below

Vinnies Shops provide furniture, clothing and household goods to families and people who are in need and are being assisted by conference members.

Our Vinnies Shops are also a valuable resource for people on low incomes, enabling them to buy quality clothing, furniture and other household items at an affordable price. The profit from the sale of stock from our Vinnies shops goes directly towards providing resources and support to people in need.

We are a lay Catholic organisation working towards a more just and compassionate society

The St Vincent de Paul Society wishes to acknowledge that we are on Aboriginal land. We pay our respects to all traditional custodians. This website may contain images of deceased members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. They are used with the greatest respect and appreciation.

Blessed Frederic Ozanam

Paris of the early 19th century was in the grip of great upheavals. During and following the French revolution 1788-1799, Paris was profoundly affected by social unrest. A new type of society was being formed – a republic based on liberty, equality and fraternity.

The 1830s brought the collapse of the old Bourbon monarchy which had dreams of strengthening the throne with the support from the Church. Religion was on the decline and atheism increasing; scepticism was virtually triumphant in the teachings of Saint Simon.

Large numbers of the country people were moving to the cities to find work in the factories. Many arrived to discover that there was no work, little pay or that the factories were closed due to revolution.

In 1832 an epidemic of cholera swept through Paris killing up to 1200 people each day. Large slums areas were forming in Paris; thousands of people lived without work, some without clothes, and many alcoholic. Homelessness, disease, and starvation were common.

A young student, Frederic Ozanam had to walk through the poorer suburbs on his way to university lectures each day and he soon became deeply moved at the hopeless state of families who had been left without the support of their breadwinners after the epidemic.

It was the taunt of an anti-religious opponent in a debating society founded by the students that stung him to action:

“You are right Ozanam when you speak of the past! In former times Christianity worked wonders, but what is it doing for mankind now? And you, who pride yourself on your Catholicity, what are you doing now for the poor? Show us your works”

Frederic Ozanam gathered a few friends around him and on 23 April 1833, they met to decide what they could do to assist the poor. After the meeting Frederic and his flat mate took the remainder of their winter wood supply and gave it to a widow. These young men attracted the comment “What can seven young men hope to achieve in alleviating the suffering of Paris?” Fortunately Ozanam paid little heed to their comments, determined to satisfy his own conscience that he was doing what he could to bear witness to his Christian upbringing by assisting those less fortunate in the community.

The small group decided to adopt the name The Society of St Vincent de Paul after the Patron Saint of Christian charity. They sought the advice of Sister Rosalie Rendu, a Daughter of Charity who was visiting poor families in one of the poorer districts. Sr Rendu introduced the young men to people they could assist. They agreed to meet weekly to strengthen their friendship and to respond to the needs of those they served.

It was not long after that other good citizens of Paris took note of the charitable works of the students. Within a year membership had expanded to 100 and it became necessary to split the conference (group) into three separate conferences. At the same time other conferences sprang up in Parishes around Paris. In its first decade the Society spread to 48 other cities in France and Italy and numbered over 9,000 members. After some years the Society reached Rome (1842), England (1844), Belgium, Scotland, Ireland (1845), the United States of America (1846) and Australia on 5 March 1854.

Until 1963 women were organised separately throughout the world as the ‘Womans Society of St. Vincent de Paul’, with headquarters in Bologna, Italy. It was founded in 1856 to render charitable aid to the afflicted in matters which men could not handle such as the care of widows, orphan girls and mothers with small families. After a trial period the women’s Society was amalgamated with the men’s Society in 1967. Internationally the Society now admits both men and women with equal responsibility.

The St Vincent de Paul Society operates and has offices in all states and territories in Australia. To contact us in your state or territory please click on the state buttons below.

You can also connect with us on social media. Once you have clicked on a state button below just scroll down and you’ll see the state Facebook page and Twitter handle.

Mission
The St Vincent de Paul Society is a lay Catholic organisation that aspires to live the gospel messageby serving Christ in the poor with love, respect, justice, hope and joy, and by working to shape a more just and compassionate society.

Services include:
Aged persons support, child and family support, disabled persons support, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, emergency and transitional accommodation, emergency relief, food distribution and low cost food outlets, medium to long term accommodation, migrants and refugee support, overseas development, youth support, home visitation, indigenous support, financial services (budget counselling and No Interest Loans)

The St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland provides a ‘hand up, not just a hand out’ to people in need.

Company Overview
The St Vincent de Paul Society Queensland is a non-profit organisation that is dedicated to serving the most disadvantaged and underprivileged people in our community.

Establised in 1894, the Society’s members and volunteers provide financial and practical support, advocacy and frienship to the most vulnerable in our communities. This support is delivered through local groups, known as ‘conferences’, as well as through our human services and Centres of Charity (Vinnies shops).

General Information
Our page is monitored during business hours Monday – Friday but we are not online 24/7 so please be patient. Thank you for your support.

Our Impact

Low-Income Support
Housing and Homelessness
Refugees and Migrants
Health Matters
Indigenous Australia
Children and Education
International Impact
A Wider Impact

Vinnies QLD Social Media Terms and Conditions

The team at Vinnies QLD love hearing from you via Twitter (@VinniesQLD), Facebook & LinkedIn.

Social media is a great place for you to share your experiences, opinions and thoughts on our work.

We check our Twitter and Facebook pages as well as discussion boards and forums between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday.

We aim to answer all queries within 24 hours however, on occasion it may take longer as we may need to liaise with different department and programs in order to give you the right information.

Our policy is generally never to delete user comments – even if they’re very critical of the society and its works– BUT there are a few reasons we may take down your posts.

They are:-

If your post may offend anyone. That means no swearing, racist, sexist or otherwise nasty comments. And certainly no personal attacks.

–  If your post is defamatory of any organisation (including ours). That means no posting accusations and allegations of crimes or misconduct.

–  If you flood our feed.  We are keen for you to make your point and engage the Society or anyone else in polite, informed and continued discussion, but we will endeavour to protect the conversation from being ‘hijacked’ by any one voice. We want there to be room for everyone to comment.

– If you post information that may endanger your privacy.  It’s never a good idea to share intimate information (for example phone numbers, private email addresses etc) on public sites, and if we think you’ve posted something others may abuse, we’ll take it down to protect you.

– If your post is purely commercial. No advertising, please – there are other places for that.

One more thing to remember is that – while everyone is free and welcome to post links to their own or other websites – the fact that they’re on our site doesn’t mean the society endorses them nor takes any responsibility for the accuracy or copyrights of the content on those sites.

We look forward to reading your posts!