The Community Welfare Fund (CWF) was established in the year 2004, as the Benevolent Fund, with the purpose of reaching out in charity to poor parishioners for their medical, educational and housing needs. Though the SVP was already rendering service to the poor and needy, the objective of the CWF was to cater, on a larger scale, to the needs of only the registered families of our parish.
Though initially generated through donations, the funds are now provided out of the 1% contributions made to the Sacred Heart Parish Community Fund. Additionally, a certain sum of money, generated during the Parish’s Silver Jubilee celebrations in November 2012, has also been added to the Fund, and is being disbursed as educational assistance. Thanks to the partial reimbursement provided by the Archdiocesan Corpus Fund in cases where large costs have been incurred on hospitalization, we have been able to increase the aid disbursed in such cases since 2014.
The disbursement of financial aid to poor and needy families is done by a committee of four members, which includes one member from the CCO, who meet on every Friday at 7.45pm in Room No. 1 of the Community Centre.
The procedure followed is:
- The needy parishioners approach the CCO with their “Family Card”, during office hours, and put in their applications for the required help. These applications are forwarded to the CWF for action.
- The CWF Committee meets the applicants and processes their applications once a week. A photocopy of the family card and all original bills / receipts are required to be submitted to the Committee. Based on the PPC members’ verification reports and its own findings, the Committee then givesits recommendations.
- The forms are reviewed by the Trustee of the Fund and the sanctioned help is then made available to the applicants.
Since the inception of the Benevolent Fund / CWF, around 1,400 applications have been processed by the Committee.
Parishioners are welcome to donate directly to the Community Welfare Fund, over and above their regular 1% contributions to the Sacred Heart Parish Community Fund. This will be of great help in meeting the ever-increasing medical and educational needs of our needy parishioners.