Blanket Sunday celebrates 40th anniversary of bringing blankets, essentials to Northeast Ohioans

If anyone in Northeast Ohio is familiar with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, it’s Cleveland’s landlords and utilities. 

You, the reader, may have no experience with the local branch of the international Catholic charity, but those with the power to evict or bankrupt are well acquainted. That’s because the Cleveland Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) is devoted to keeping people in their homes, and its agents regularly go to bat for those in need. 

“Every landlord in town seems to know us,” said Jack Bedell, the group’s executive director, adding that the utility companies, “They’ve gotten to know us pretty well … We’ve become very effective.” 

Rent and utility assistance are indeed two key services SVDP provides. Last year alone, the organization helped some 1,100 Northeast Ohio families keep up with their monthly bills. 

But rent and utility aid aren’t the only or even the most conspicuous of the group’s efforts. At the moment, SVDP is leaning most heavily into the 40^th anniversary of “Blanket Sunday,” its flagship campaign to purchase and distribute blankets, linens and other essentials to the unhoused or impoverished across Northern Ohio. The $400,000 campaign – up from $315,000 last year – officially kicks off Sunday, Oct. 4.

“It’s our single biggest fundraiser, by a long shot,” said Marketing and Development Manager Kelly Shaw, noting the effect inflation has had on the group’s goals and operations. “Everything all around has gone up.”

Fundamentally, SVDP has one overarching goal: to keep people in their homes. All too often, Bedell said, after an eviction, the “fall-off” is so “debilitating” that many people end up unhoused. At the same time, once a person loses their home, SVDP also loses much of its power to help.   

That’s why SVDP invests so heavily – some 60 percent of its funds – into the front end of that equation. Of the nearly 400 calls for help the group received across its eight-county service area in August, almost 300 were for rent or utility aid. The refrain they’re hearing these days is becoming predictable: expenses that once were manageable have shot out of reach. 

“We think it’s so critical that the people we’re helping stay where they are,” Bedell explained. “It’s really a hardship to move, and if someone becomes homeless, that’s too late for us … This is our niche in life, keeping people in their place.”

For SVDP, however, there’s more to keeping people in their homes than just paying the bills. They also care about keeping people comfortable and adequately situated. 

Along with rent and utility assistance, SVDP beneficiaries also receive home visits – and, as a Catholic organization, an invitation to pray. During those visits, the group often finds that while a family may have a roof over their heads, they may not have any furniture, or any place to sleep but the floor.  

That’s where “Blanket Sunday” comes in. Armed with the contributions of 64 parish groups representing 180 parishes across the Cleveland diocese, SVDP purchases and distributes new bed-frames, mattresses and linens to homes in need. 

“I can fit three of them in my Honda Pilot,” Bedell said of the mattress and frame sets, 500 of which the group donated last year. “I solve the problem very quickly.”

“People absolutely love it,” Shaw added. “They can’t thank us enough. Often they didn’t even know this was available.”

As its name implies, “Blanket Sunday” also serves the unhoused. What began as a large donation of blankets to SVDP by an employee at the former O’Neil’s department store in Akron has blossomed into an enduring and regionwide effort to keep those unable or unwilling to stay in shelters warm at night. 

In this, SVDP has many partners, the largest of which is St. Ignatius High School, whose longstanding Labre Ministry accomplishes much of the leg-work of distribution. Along with “Blanket Sunday” blankets, participants in that program regularly disperse meals, clothing, toiletries and first aid at homeless sites around the region.

John Gill, executive director of the Arrupe Neighborhood Partnership at St. Ignatius, said SVDP donates 1,300 blankets to his program every year, a significant share of the roughly 5,000 new blankets SVDP distributes annually. “It is a big help,” Gill said, in a written statement. 

Beyond all that, SVDP also maintains a robust food ministry. Across its territory, its many volunteers and staff operate seven hunger centers and food pantries, in partnership with the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. At those facilities, “There’s a high volume of activity, every single Saturday,” Bedell said.

SVDP itself is a small organization, with just a handful of employees. With a cast of volunteers in the thousands, however, and its insistence on a personal touch, the group’s impact is enormous.  

Indeed, it was programs like “Blanket Sunday” and the food ministry that drew Bedell and Shaw to SVDP in the first place. Both left other lines of work to act on their faith and make doing good deeds their full-time jobs. 

“You just go home feeling better,” Shaw said. “At the end of the day, it feels good to be doing something that helps people.”