“My pimp’s going to kill me, my pimp’s going to kill me,” said the young woman huddled outside of St. Vincent de Paul Society’s thrift store when it used to be on Third Avenue in downtown Prince George.
“This is something that touched me to the core of my being,” Bernie Goold, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Society, said as she remembered that moment. “In the mid-90s a group of friends and I had come from a function where the organizers had donated food that was left over and we came down to put the food away.”
When Goold first spotted the woman, she thought she was approaching a child.
“But it was a young woman huddled there and I went and I asked her how she was, what was wrong, and she asked if she could come in,” Goold said. “So I brought her inside.”
Hot chocolate was offered and gratefully accepted.
“She said ‘do you have any clothes?’” Goold recalled. “She was naked under her coat. In her words ‘the trick’ that she was with had kicked her out and kept her clothes and that has touched me deeply. We were able to get her into the transition house and she was then moved out of town and now every time I see somebody that reminds me of her it touches my heart. That night I went home and I cried and my husband cried and I said ‘how lucky we are.’ Just think if that was your daughter.”
And that’s what keeps Goold going.
Goold started volunteering in 1982 and has never stopped her mission of serving the community 365 days a year at the street level for the St. Vincent de Paul Society in downtown Prince George.
“We are nothing without our wonderful volunteers and staff,” Goold was quick to say. “We have an army that supports us and we are really blessed by all the people who volunteer, which is our greatest wealth and all the donations we get from the public.”
The St. Vincent de Paul Society needs volunteers, especially at the drop-in centre at 1220 Second Ave., where more than 300 meals are served each day through a take-out window at the front door. The service organization has not had the volunteers to open its doors since the pandemic but are always hopeful more volunteers will come forward to make that possible.
For more information visit https://ssvdppg.com/volunteer-with-us/
