This is a story of young volunteers. The  8^th grade class of St. Thomas the Apostle decided to do a service project and make a house a home for a needy family in south Phoenix. (We’ll introduce the Aguilar family in the next album!) We’ll show the entire process of our Vincentian Fresh Perspectives program with the efforts of this great group of students!

Today’s post brought to you by Liz Leyba, Roy Juarez, and Sarah Hose.

The St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic School children believe that “home is where the heart is.”

With the help of St. Vincent de Paul’s Fresh Perspective Program, they wanted to help make a needy family’s house a home. There was just one problem—where would they get the donations they needed to help make this possible? Their solution? An art show, of course!

Each and every child at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic School created a piece of art that illustrated their idea of “Home Sweet Home.” Then their parents were invited to buy their beautiful pieces of art. 100% of the money raised, the children donated to the Fresh Perspective program for two home makeovers!

“Where the heart is” is not only in a home….it is also in each child! Visit this site frequently over the course of the next week to see the story of the families that St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church and others helped!!

Engelman Berger law firm brought 25 volunteers to the home of a great-grandmother and her family yesterday, and in a matter of hours completed one of the most extensive home makeover projects that Fresh Perspectives has undertaken. Channel 12 News ran a beautiful live story on the home makeover. The emotion and energy of these makeovers comes across so vividly in this piece. Click the photo below to view this moving video.

Live news coverage of a Fresh Perspectives home makeover

For more information about Fresh Perspectives or to get involved, contact Gabriela Bova at gbova@svdp-phx-az.org.

To see Nellie and her family viewing the other rooms in their home for the first time, click the photo below.

A Fresh Perspectives Home Makeover

St. Vincent de Paul’s volunteer home makeover program, Fresh Perspectives recently worked its magic on the home of Jessie and her granddaughter, Toni. Jessie had worked hard for her home, but then she was laid off and diagnosed with cancer, and keeping up with the house became an unmanageable burden.

Fortunately, Jessie was able to beat her cancer and is on her way back to regaining her health, however her house was in need of some help it feel like a home again. The FireStarters at Refinery Christian Church in Goodyear came to the rescue. With the FireStarters volunteering to help, Fresh Perspectives was able to clean the living area and clear out a room that was used for storage so that Toni could have something she had never had before – a room of her own.

When Toni saw her new room, she was moved to tears. She was so touched and grateful that a group of volunteers cared so much about her and wanted to make her and her grandmother’s lives better.

Many thanks to the FireStarters, Jessie and Toni are able to live with pride in their home again.

Fresh Perspectives is currently in need of:

• Pots and baskets for plants
• Gravel for walkways and patios
• Laminate flooring material and carpet

If you’d like to donate any of these items or would like to help fund other home makeover projects, contact Gabriela Bova at GBova@svdp-phx-az.org.

Angelina and Hector live in an old house that has seen better days. Angelina is a seamstress who sews curtains and mends clothes. Hector who in addition to working as a car salesman does odd jobs for the landlord in exchange for rent. While, they take great pride in their home, they do not have the resources to improve it.

Thanks to 80 volunteers from Air Cold Supply, who partnered with the St. Vincent de Paul Fresh Perspectives program, the family’s home received lots of love in the form of fresh paint and furnishings. The house started with dirty, bare walls and sparse furnishings. But by the time the volunteers finished, it was a cozy and comfortable home for Angelina, Hector and their children.

Special thanks to the volunteers who brought not only enthusiasm, and creativity, but also donated items too!

To learn more about the program or how you can get involved, email gbova@svdp-phx-az.org.

Volunteers from Aetna bring Christmas joy to a family

We first met Tyranza and her family when a team of teens from Cross of Christ Lutheran Church in Anthem descended on her home for a two hundred person-hour transformation into a true work of art, as one of our Vincentian Fresh Perspectives home makeover projects. You can see photos of this makeover project here.

This week donor/volunteer employees of Aetna, who have worked with St. Vincent de Paul in so many helpful ways over the years, have learned about Tyranza’s family, and have adopted them for Christmas, bringing presents for all of the kids and meeting the family. This is another example of St. Vincent de Paul’s elves hard at work bringing Christmas joy to disadvantaged families. Thank you for your wonderful generosity! And thank you especially to Sarah from Aetna, who organized this day of giving.

You can find more photos of this joyful day on St. Vincent de Paul’s Facebook page here. (You don’t have to have a Facebook account to see the photos).

Tyronza's family was delighted by the visit from the elves

Vincentian Fresh Perspectives creates volunteer home makeovers for families in need. To learn more or to get involved, contact Gabriela at gbova@svdp-phx-az.org

St. Louis Catholic Parish Youth Group, led by Hannah Voss, jumped out of the fire and into the frying pan this past week when they left Minnesota for a mission trip in Phoenix, Arizona—in the summer.  St. Vincent de Paul’s Vincentian Fresh Perspectives program was blessed the week of August 13th through August 18th with the group of 15 young volunteers and 2 adult supervisors.  Even though the heat was not something that they were used to, the group was cohesive and worked very hard.

St. Louis Parish Youth Group

While the youth group was here in Phoenix, Vincentian Fresh Perspectives had a VERY busy schedule!  They reorganized the “little” warehouse for the Vincentian Fresh Perspectives program, painted furniture to be used in projects, and painted murals on cardboard that also will be used for projects.  Most importantly, however, the group helped us with home makeovers.  For the first time since the program’s inception, we had four home makeovers in one week!  Without the help and cooperation of St. Louis Parish’s Youth Group, completing 4 home makeovers in one week would not have been possible.  To complete one project requires many hours of preparation.  A wish list has to be compiled for each project and then from that list, we hunt for the items in our warehouse.

Teen Angels earning wings!

It’s a bit like a treasure hunt!  Murals are painted on cardboard to be hung on the wall in the children’s rooms.  The truck needs to be loaded here at St. Vincent de Paul and then unloaded at the client’s home.  And lastly, those items need to be placed in the home and nicely organized, hopefully giving the client a “Fresh Perspective” on life.

This group of kids did an outstanding job!  They were a cohesive group that cooperated with one another to complete each project at hand.  It was great watching the group attack each project.  One of the group said, “You hear what they like and you get to make it happen.  You are able to use your creativity.”  And, that’s what they did. They started at the beginning and followed through to the very end. Dividing into groups, each group was focused and went to work doing whatever they were tasked with.  They were so

Decorating a young boy's bedroom

excited to see the looks of joy and to hear the expressions of gratitude from our clients when they realized that what they had done was make their house a home.   In fact, one of the girls said just that—she had been on 6 mission trips and this was her favorite one because she felt she actually was taking part in making a house a home.  This was a wonderful week, filled with blessings.  There were many smiles of joy—not only on the client’s faces but also on the faces of the youth group from St. Louis Catholic Parish.  Thank you so much for your willingness to serve!  You all are awesome!

Click any of the descriptions below to see an album of photos from that home makeover