OZANAM INN
Serving The Homeless Since 1955
Ozanam Inn is staffed by clergy and laypersons and is sponsored by the Society of St. Vincent De Paul.
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Volunteer Service
Opportunities Include:
Receptionist
Meal Preparation
Meal-A-Month
General Office Work
Computer/Word Processing
Transportation
Collection of Donations
Landscaping/Yard Work
Continued growth periodically opens new areas of need and
summer volunteer opportunities are available.
There is protected volunteer parking on site.
PROCEDURE
Every volunteer who makes a commitment to the Ozanam Inn will receive:
- AN INTERVIEW
To help match each volunteer's interests, talents and schedule to the Inn's needs.
- ORIENTATION AND TOUR
To help the volunteer get to know the Inn's philosophy, services and organization, to learn the various functions of the Inn, to meet people and become familiar with the Inn's physical facility.
- ON THE JOB TRAINING
To know just what the duties are to make the volunteer comfortable in his/her assignment.
VOLUNTEERISM:
The Modern Day Samaritan
Volunteer Services administration is based on a commitment to social responsibility, the need of every human being to express concern for other persons and the right to human dignity.
In that context, the Volunteer Manager of Ozanam Inn strives to facilitate placement for the volunteer that will bring a mutally satisfying experience to both the volunteer and the guest.
The caring volunteer, who makes a commitment to Ozanam Inn performs an invaluable service in assisting the staff to meet the social, psychological, emotional and spiritual needs of the resident.
ADVOCACY:
Active support, as of a cause, idea or policy.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another, without helping himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
In compliance with the provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and with the Regulations of the City of New Orleans, the Inn assures that no person shall, on the grounds of race, color, or national origin, be denied the benefits of, or be otherwise subject to, discrimination by this facility.
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... Continuous and substantial assistance is given to the parish by the Sanctuary Society, numbering nearly 100 ladies.
The pioneer St. Patrick's Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul continues its spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Both assisted in the establishment of a notable refuge in the parish, urgently promoted and directed by the pastor, Monsignor Bezou - Ozanam Inn, a block away from the church.
-- Roger Baudier (1958)
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I have been reading a lot of Ozanam lately. He started his religious Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul after the "history conferences" had been carried on for about a year. One of his companions confessed himself to be tired of the "eternal controversies".
The difficulty with Ozanam's group was evidently just the opposite of our main difficulty. Dorothy has been married for the past six months and she and Tom are only in the office a few hours a day. They are both mainly interested in propaganda, the getting out of a paper and pamphlets, and are not much interested in the works of mercy or houses of hospitality except as propaganda centers, with a careful weeding out going on all the time so that only those who agree with us and work with us are kept.
Ozanam's group discarded the propaganda and kept only to the charitable work so that indoctrination did not go hand in hand with charitv. We feel that the two must go together since we are trying to change the social order. We have to change the social order so that men will have a chance to become men.
Following Peter's ideas, we are trying to make the workers into scholars and the scholars workers. So we take whoever comes to us as sent by God and do not believe in picking and choosing. If we start eliminating then there is no end to it. Everyone wishes to eliminate someone else.
In a group of people living together more or less in community, grievances always pile up which change from day to day and from month to month. Even if we had only picked "intellectuals", young students and propagandists, there would be dissensions and grave differences of opinion. Tom and Dorothy are more at home with the scholars and wish to concentrate more on propaganda. As it is, most of the money is spent on food and shelter and not much is left for the paper and for pamphlets.
But Peter and I feel that the work is more important than the talking and writing about the work. It has always been through the performance of the works of mercy that love is expressed, that people are converted, that the masses are reached.
Charity should never look behind but always ahead, because the number of her past good deeds is always small, whereas the present and future miseries which she must solace are infinite," Ozanam wrote.
"The faith, the charity of the first ages, they are not too much for our age. Evils equally great must have an equal remedy. The earth has gone cold, and it is for us Catholics to reanimate the vital heat which is being extinguished, to recommence the era of the martyrs. For to be a martyr is a thing within the reach of all Christians. It is to give our lives for God and for our brothers....
"The race of man in our days seems to me like the reveller of whom the Gospel speaks. It, too, has fallen among thieves who stole away its treasure of faith and love. The priests and the Levites have passed and this time, as they were true priests and Levites, they approached and longed to heal the sufferer. But in its delirium it knew them not and repulsed them. In our turn, feeble Samaritans, profane and of little faith though we be, we dare, nevertheless, to accost this great invalid.
Perhaps it will not be affrighted at us, so let us try to probe its wounds and to pour oil into them, to whisper in its ears words of consolation and peace, and then, when its eyes re-open, we will put it back into the hands of those whom God has constituted the guardians and physicians of souls.
"When we Catholics reminded these straying brethren of the marvels of Christianity, they used one and all to retort:
'You are right if you speak of the past; Christianity in other times did wonders, but today it is dead. And indeed, you who boast of your Catholicism, what do you do? Where are the works which prove your faith and would make us respect and admit it?'
They were justified; this reproach was only too well deserved. Well, then, to work! Let our acts square with our faith. And what were we to do in order to be genuine Catholics if not that which is most pleasing to the eyes of God? Let us then help our neighbor as Jesus Christ did, and put our faith under the protection of charity. . . ."
In season and out of season, he pleaded for "the annihilation of the political spirit in the interests of the social spirit."
From House of Hospitality (Dorothy Day, Chapter 3) (at the Catholic Worker site)
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