For 3 decades, good Samaritan has blessed Capital City
For 30 years now, our community has been blessed with the Samaritan Center, a charitable agency that has fed, clothed and done so much more for the disadvantaged people in our community.
It seeks to meet the crisis/emergency needs of people in Mid-Missouri - needs not being handled by other agencies.
But the agency, which can be traced to the Catholic Church, also serves to "be an advocate of the people who ask for help and fulfill the Gospel message of Jesus," regardless of race, ethnic origin, religion or age.
Back in 1987, Marylyn DeFeo, a social concerns commissioner at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, saw the need for a central faith-based social service agency, and approached then-Bishop Michael F. McAuliffe with the idea. DeFeo was told a social service agency would be impractical because of the size and diversity of the diocese. She was told if she truly felt the community had a need for more social services, she should start work on it herself.
So she did.
Social concerns committees from several area Catholic churches met to start an interfaith social service agency, and three other churches joined the effort. They started the Samaritan Center in an empty classroom at the Pleus Building at Immaculate Conception Church.
Initially, a volunteer workforce of 15 people served the same number of families.
The agency moved to a more spacious location at 1310 E. McCarty St. in 1999, and now serves 1,100 families each month, according to its website.
The Samaritan Center recently celebrated its 30th anniversary at its 15th annual dinner/auction.
"I would have never been able to do any of this without the community and the volunteers who come out to support us," DeFeo said. "I will be forever grateful for all 660 volunteers who come around throughout the year to help the center continue to thrive."
Our community is in debt for what DeFeo and others have done to create the Samaritan Center and build it into what it is today.
Contributions may be brought to the center 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The telephone number is 634-7776.