Culinary Adventure Interview Featuring Bill Allen from St. Vincent De Paul Society

Good morning, Southwest Florida! Good morning, Bill.

Good morning, Renee.

So good to have you here. My name is Renee Hahn, and today I am here as part of Naples Women's Club, and I'm honestly, sincerely really excited about a new event we have coming up. And this is something that, that Bill will be a part of, and we'll get to that in a moment. But I wanted to share, this is a new event for Naples Women's Club, so Naples Women's Club, if you're not familiar with it, is a powerful organization that does a lot of outreach and good in the community. And one of the events that's been our, our real sort of pillar event, the kitchen tours, which people may be familiar with. COVID's kind of put a little wrench in that and challenged us for the coming year to think about some alternatives. And since we know people have loved doing the kitchen tour and the element of food and entertainment and connection, we are segueing into a new event that's the first time we're going to do it, and we're just really excited. It's called A Culinary Adventure. You'll see below the 3 dates that the luncheons are, and this event, The Culinary Adventure, is really intended to accomplish 3 things. One, we know COVID has been tough on hospitality, tourism, and so one of the 3 goals for us is to be to be able to support heavily impacted culinary community. And so this event is going to be a paid event where we take guests to 16 restaurants for a wonderful intimate luncheon, all with the right protocol in place so that people feel safe, and the chefs are gonna be our hosts. So really cool, that's the first goal. Second goal is to provide an exciting adventure for guests. So we know people have been homebound, they might be getting antsy, a little stir-crazy, And so we think these luncheons are going to be a, just a delight. And the third goal, which is what brings me to invite Bill here to talk today, is to provide funding for agencies that are helping Collier County residents with food insecurity. We've had a lot of shifting going on in our environment, some tied to COVID, some that are just a part of everyday living. And in Collier County, there are needs, and organizations like the one Bill's here to talk about help us connect with those residents and fill those needs. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce— I told Bill, by the way, we were talking about background noise and while working from home, I said if the Amazon truck comes, we're probably gonna have barking here and on cue. So without further ado, I'm gonna have my husband grab the dog. Without further ado, Bill, I'd like to introduce you as the Director of Development for St. Vincent de Paul Society. So, Bill, tell us a little bit about yourself, please.

Well, I came to Naples last November, so actually today, November 11th. So this is my one-year anniversary. I've never spent any time in Naples or Collier County or this area of Florida, but for 20-plus years, I ran a company that helped nonprofits raise money, reorganize, get in sync with their own community. We did that around the country, so from Wyoming to Texas to Chicago to the Maryland Shore and back down to North Florida. But this area is new to me, so I took the position with St. Vincent de Paul. I always like to say the first non-Catholic school I went to was law school. So I obviously had the Catholic background. St. Vincent de Paul is a Catholic organization, but I took it because of what we do. It always excited me to— when we were picking our clients back when I had my own business, it was, what is it they do? What kind of impact did they make on the community? And then our question was, does anybody know that? From that knowledge, folks will give money. So I'm excited to get out into the community and talk to as many folks as possible.

Well, Bill, we welcome you first of all to paradise. You picked a beautiful place.

It's been raining a lot.

I know, but—

More than you tell people.

I know, but that's to keep this beautiful lush greenery that everyone loves when they're down here. It has to be watered once in a while, so—

And the gators like it. I get it, you know.

Absolutely. Well, Bill, it's a pleasure to have you here. And I would like to segue over and learn a little bit about St. Vincent de Paul Society, because when we were talking before we came on live, and you just reiterated again, it's an organization with a deep and giving background, but the community may not be as familiar with it. So let's talk a little bit about the organization, if you don't mind.

Sure, real quick, we've been around for 43 years in this area. The organization itself, Saint Vincent de Paul Society, goes back to Paris in the early 1800s. So it is a long history of helping the poor. And I'll just kind of leave that as a, as a statement. How you help the poor depends on the community you're in. So we've elected to basically do two things. The first is Meals on Wheels. Everybody's familiar with Meals on Wheels. It's a national organization, but they operate through affiliates. So we are the local Collier County affiliate for Meals on Wheels. And let me stop here for a second. When I say Meals on Wheels, a lot of folks say, oh, that's government funded. It's not government funded. We receive absolutely no government funding. The other thing is— go back to the Catholic— we are a Catholic organization, but we don't just help Catholics. We help everybody. We don't have volunteers who are just Catholic. We have volunteers who are everything. And the last point of that is we receive no money from the Catholic Church. We're not a line item in the diocese or any local church. We do receive, however, a lot of money from individuals who attend Catholic Church. But that gives us flexibility. We're not tied to government strings and so forth. We can see a need and we can address it. So the first thing is Meals on Wheels. We raise, or have to raise, roughly $275,000 to deliver 54,000 meals a year. That's over 1,000 meals. Now, who gets those meals? It's the low-income, homebound, frail seniors and disabled folks in our community. A lot of folks provide food, but we're dealing with the folks who are so frail, they really can't stand at the stove and cook. There's a lot of those folks in this community. It's a retirement-type community. A lot of folks moved here years ago, have, I'll say, outlived their money, outlived their support system. We get referrals from Collier County government to churches, to friends who know neighbors who know elderly folks who would really be served well if they were provided with Meals on Wheels. So that's kind of our lifeblood. We have, I'm here because we want to expand. We know there's greater need out there, but the reluctance has always been, "Eh," you know, "We don't want to take on another senior if we can't raise the money." So the way I look at Meals on Wheels is this community understands seniors. I think once we get out there and explain Meals on Wheels and the fact that we are the affiliate, I think a lot of folks are going to say, Yeah, I want to get behind you. Second thing we do, I call financial, food, and furniture assistance to working and nonworking families. In this community, we have a lot of folks who are, for lack of a better term, working poor. They're working, you know, $8, $9, $10 an hour jobs in the hospitality industry, restaurants, the senior care, healthcare, you name it. They hit a bump in the road, a temporary bump, say the car breaks down and they need to have it repaired. We will help them make rent or utilities. But we don't build dependence. We help them once a year. We keep very good track. We do an extremely good job of vetting to make sure that the stories we're being told are true. But one of the messages I'm trying to get out to the community is we did a quick tally and we discovered that our families— and we helped 7,500 families last year— our families work for over 1,000 different employers in this community. So whether you live in a gated community, whether you go to the hospital, whether you use senior care, go to a restaurant, retail, you name it, uh, the folks you see behind the counter or providing those services are the exact same folks that we help when they get into a temporary financial crisis. So we do that, that message of us impacting quality of life here is going to be a big part of how we communicate to the community moving forward.

Well, and I think that's really powerful, and I want to interject for a minute around this because, you know, I don't want to get down a path of sharing about myself, but when I was young and in college and as— and I found myself to be a single parent trying to go to college full-time, child, you know, I had needs that nobody knew about. They just looked at, you know, externally what I presented but didn't know the struggles I went through internally. And I think living in a place like Naples now, where I have been incredibly blessed to be able to provide plenty for my family, it's really easy to live in our bubbles and look at the beauty of Naples and the pristine and the, you know, the high-priced homes, and we forget that there are absolutely people in need. And I will just share a point of vulnerability to myself. When I came here, you know, I didn't, like I had lived in other places, the homeless situation was not right in front of my face. And so it was really easy for me to make assumptions that a place like Naples perhaps didn't have the same depth and width of need. And that's not the case. Correct, Bill?

Oh, absolutely. And we, while we see a lot of those folks, the bulk of who we help are the folks who are working or become seasonally unemployed. Um, I think the more we get the, the word out to the community— and Albeca, one of the, one of my objectives is to get inside all the gated communities. A lot of those gated communities actually have employees who who have helped. So there's already a connection there. And I think if I can get in front of the residents and in a sense, point out the window and say, look out the window, do you see the folks mowing the lawn? You see the folks, you know, carrying the towels to the pool. You see that all of those employees, those are the type of people who, when they hit a bump in the road, they come to us. And if we help them, they don't get evicted. If they don't get evicted, they show up at work on Monday. You know, there's an interconnectedness in this circle of quality of life, if you will, that I think folks will know once it's talked about. And they realize that, yeah, when you go to the restaurant, when you go to the store, no matter where you go in this community, you're interacting with folks who we're helping. And I think that ties everybody together.

No, it's, and the need is real and—

Oh yeah, absolutely.

There have been probably some increased needs as COVID has affected different living and employment scenarios. So, Bill, there's many different fundraising activities that your organization does throughout the year to be able to provide these things. We're obviously here talking about the upcoming Culinary Adventure. And I want to talk a little bit about how if individuals purchase tickets to that event, that then generate donations that we can give back to your organization. What are some of those things, recognizing that it doesn't have to be specific, but what are some of those ways that when somebody buys that $125 luncheon ticket, not only do they get to enjoy what's going to be a fantastic luncheon, but they're giving back through that? What, in what ways will, will that benefit your organization and ultimately the people of our community?

Well, if it's okay, I'll talk a little bit about the last donation that you gave us and what and how we used it. Back in March, Naples Women's Club was fantastic. Well, let me stop here. You folks listened, first of all. You were willing to listen to what we do, how we do it, and that kind of thing. You then discussed it, and then you took action. You made a donation. You gave us the dollars to do what we need to do. It was focused on Meals on Wheels. I have some numbers here. So you purchased, Naples Women's Club purchased almost 3,000 Meals on Wheels between April 19th and May 16th. So it's about 30 days. You fed 127 of our low-income homebound seniors. And I like to say, you know, they're frail. These folks are so homebound The senior centers will say, oh well, you know, if they come, we'll feed them. That's the problem. They, they're so frail they can't get to the senior centers to be fed. But you fed them for 28 days during the height of COVID Now these meals are extremely good. We get great reviews. They're manufactured, they're delivered frozen, so they're there when our low-income seniors are ready to take them out of the freezer and pop them either in the oven or the microwave. So they're very easy to prepare. And they're, like I said, the feedback is that they're delicious. So, and obviously nutritious. So that's what you did. So every one of the folks who come to your event, and I'm looking forward to that, 16 restaurants, what a great way to understand Naples and experience Naples. But as you're buying the ticket, know that your dollars are actually feeding folks who not only in everyday life are they somewhat invisible because they're homebound and they don't really have a support system, but during COVID when everybody had to be homebound, there was a real possibility that they would get lost in the shuffle. So one of the things we're proud of is during COVID we never missed a meal. We figured out how to, and we're volunteer-based, but our volunteers had to shelter in place too. But we figured out how to make that happen, that the meals would continue, the interaction with our Meals on Wheels recipients, our elderly, that continued. So we were always in contact over the phone, and like I said, and they also had their meals. So we like to think of ourselves as responsive. We had an objective and a goal. We needed to deliver those meals and interact with our seniors on a daily basis, and we figured out how to do it.

Well, and I love because we all, you know, I think we can relate to this on different levels. The meal is obviously a really, really important component of that. But that connection when somebody brings that delivery, especially if you're not able to get out and experience, we all probably have a fraction of the appreciation having been temporarily homebound, but still in great health and fully functioning. So imagine the joy those visits must bring, not just for the food, but the human interaction.

That's the number one comment that we get from our seniors is my Meals on Wheels driver is the only person I see sometimes, you know, for a week. You know, that's the only interaction they're having. Like I said, once you picture yourself being so frail that getting to the door, getting out isn't going to happen. And you've, you've hit an age where your support system, maybe they've all passed away, maybe you never had kids, and any church connection, you know, all the folks you knew at church have passed away. You can, you can imagine what a lot of these folks are experiencing. So to have someone come there, check on them, which is what we say we're there for, I mean, it's interaction is one thing, but we want to make sure they're okay. You know, we know no one else is going to check on them, and our volunteers love it. And so COVID, like I said, forced us to go remote and having volunteers who were stuck at home but being able to pick up the phone, we increased the number of minutes or hours that we get to interact exponentially. So COVID— this sounds all horrible— COVID has been a blessing. Because it forced us to kind of look at what we do and then tailor it to the restrictions of COVID But as it turns out, you know, I think God's in all this. You know, the folks we're serving get more interaction. They still get the meals. The volunteers feel fulfilled, and they have a lot more time to spend with the seniors. So it's been— COVID's been tough for everybody, but it also allowed us that opportunity.

Yeah, no, that's fantastic way to adjust. And Bill, truly, thank you for taking your talents, experiences, knowledge, and expertise and giving it back in a way that benefits those that we've talked about here today. If you've just joined us or you were able to come on for the full segment and learn a little bit about what Bill and the team over there at St. Vincent de Paul are doing to bring benefit to our community, our neighbors, the people that live amongst us. I hope that you will be inspired to go check out on www.culinaryadventurenaples.org, learn more about this culinary adventure. We're going to be hosting 3 luncheons. Tickets are $125. So you could sign up to go January 27th, February 24th, or March 24th. And again, you're— not only will you get to enjoy an amazing, intimate lunch-in, again, with appropriate COVID measures taken, but you're also going to know and take satisfaction knowing that what your participation is doing is bringing benefit back to organizations like Bill's. So Bill, I'm so thankful and appreciative of you here today, both in what you do every day but in joining us this morning.

Well, thanks for having me, and thanks to the Naples Women's Club for their financial support. And then moral support of what we're doing in the community.

Well, fantastic. We're all stronger together. So thank you for your time, Bill. And those of you catching us live or on instant replay later, feel free to check out the website and see how you can get involved in this fantastic effort. And I imagine at any time, Bill, if somebody's got a real desire to help financially or with their, their time, reaching out to you as well. St. Vincent de Paul would, would have needs, I imagine, now and in the future as well for those talents.

Absolutely. Volunteer if you have a desire. We have a lot of issues obviously during COVID but if you have interest in volunteering, give me a call. We have a 4-year initiative calling— called Honoring Seniors and Guiding Families. So you can see the two pieces of what we do. And I'd love to talk to folks about that, getting involved in that.

Well, fantastic. Thank you so much, Bill, and everyone have a wonderful, wonderful day. And I'd be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to say Happy Veterans Day and to thank those that have currently or in the past have served or our loved ones of those that have served. We live in a great, wonderful country and have benefited greatly from the contributions of those that serve. In the military. So happy Veterans Day.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Bill. Have a wonderful day.

Thanks, Renee.