Each year, the St Flannan’s St Vincent de Paul Conference delivers about 70 Christmas Hampers to families in need in our local area. An integral part of this tradition is to provide an individual gift to each child of these families. To achieve this, at the beginning of Advent, Vinnies puts up a Christmas Tree in the church with tags attached which identify the gender and age of each of these children.
Parishioners will then take one or more of these tags and purchase an appropriate gift. They bring back the gifts to the piety stall for Vinnies to match up with the christmas hampers for each family. The gifts are then wrapped and delivered with the designated hamper so that on Christmas Day each of the children will experience the joy of receiving a christmas present.
This wonderful parish tradition is just another example of the warm generosity of spirit that makes St Flannan’s Catholic Parish the caring Christian community that we know it to be. On behalf of these little ones, our Conference would like to thank you for these and the many other acts of kindness that enable us to bring some hope into the lives of others less fortunate in our broader community.
Matt Tighe, Conference President
