EXCERPTS Table of Contents Translator/Editor Notes Cover Page p.25   p.35  p.88  p.94  p.151  p.190  CHAPTER XI ADVENTURES WITH SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL       I've been a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul for more than fifty years. The Society was founded in Paris in 1833 by Frédéric Ozanam, a young college student, whose intention was to organize a group of Christian friends to extend brotherhood and help to needy persons. This movement, fulfilling a real need, grew very quickly in France and throughout the world, and the first United States Conference took place in 1845. Today it is the oldest lay persons' movement in continuous activity for more than a century and a half. [...]       In Caen, we founded the Food Bank of Calvados, with six other charitable and humanitarian movements, modeled on the Bank that had been set up a year earlier in the Parisian region. We were able to redistribute more than 900 tons of merchandise in the Department of Calvados during these last few years, at a retail value of one million six hundred thousand francs [6F=$1]. This necessitated a complete transformation of our modus operandi. We needed local depots, freezers and vehicles. [...]       Before our departure, Amin de Tarrazi, the National President, had asked me to extend our trip to Martinique, to meet several of our many fellow Vincentians there. After we returned and I reported to the National Council, he asked me to be Regional Delegate for the Overseas Departments and Territories. For 25 years, this involved correspondence and several trips to the French Antilles, two trips to the island of Réunion, and one to New Caledonia. [...]       Back home, we were surprised one day to receive a curious request from the National Council of France. Bob O'Reilly, a national representatives of our Society in the U.S., would be spending a bicycling vacation with three friends in Normandy. Every year without fail, since his trip to France, he addresses a St. Patrick's Day card to us, enclosing a ten-dollar check written to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.       In later years, I have made other ties with Ireland. The government in Dublin sought out our National management, to insure that an Irish prisoner being held long term in Caen would receive visits. I applied for a visiting permit, authorizing a police report on myself. Since I was not considered too dangerous, I was granted the permit at the end of six months.       Since then, every year, he sends me a greeting addressed to "The Association for Visiting Irish Prisoners Abroad." His mother also sends cards, and this year included a surprise gift, a certificate saying that she had made a donation for a novena of Masses to be offered, to assure my entrance into Heaven. She had surmised that I would surely need it!