Service to the Poor

Young volunteers and homeless people experience conversion and live the Gospel in the Blessed Sarnelli Community, a Redemptorist home founded in inner-city Philadelphia in 1997.

Men and women from all regions of the United States as well as Canada, the Caribbean, Ireland and Germany experience the Redemptorist charisms of simplicity, prayer, service, and solidarity with people in need. Volunteers clean the house and prepare meals for their homeless guests, whom they refer to as "friends." They pray together daily.

"Praying with the poor — an essential part of Sarnelli's ministries — deeply impacts the volunteers," says co-founder, Father Kevin Murray. "The poor pray openly and honestly about their needs. They also express their trust in the people at Sarnelli House who pray with them."

In a typical week, the young volunteer residents host two lunches for about 35 guests and prepare another family-style meal for 60 to 100 homeless neighbors. On Fridays, Sarnelli House residents deliver lunches to people who live in the streets. They also volunteer at other ministries, such as local shelters and nursing homes.

Father Murray believes that the volunteers at Sarnelli House are looking for a prayerful, faith-based community where they can live — in response to the Gospel — their own desire to help others, particularly the poor and abandoned.

"They are interested in working with people who not only need help but who in turn help the volunteers in their spiritual and human development," Father Murray says. "A thin veil separates us from those who live on the streets."

Student volunteers who are in high school stay at Sarnelli House for the summer session; college students usually stay for a year.

"The average person does not see how wealthy the poor people are in their real, open, joyful trust," Father Murry says. "It is transforming for all of us at the House to be part of it."