Once a guest, now a volunteer
Denise Cecchi walked back into the Family Dining Room at St. Vincent de Paul for the first time in years. Instead of coming with her kids for a nightly meal though, this time she donned a name tag, apron, gloves, and hairnet as a volunteer.
“What I enjoyed out of it was just talking to people and serving people,” Denise says of her volunteering experience. “I just want to help if I can.”
Denise experienced homelessness and housing insecurity for five years and stepping into the Family Dining Room that night brought all those memories back for her.
“I’m just reflecting back on when I was here,” she says. “And I’m like, ‘You know what? You have time Denise, and you have money. Why don’t you give back like you said you would?’ I said I was going to give back. I said it to God.”
For Denise, the journey to get to this point of stability in her life was a long and challenging one. It began with a divorce from a financially abusive husband. She thought she could make it on her own, get her own apartment and job after the divorce, she remembers, but it was harder than she thought with two toddlers — both under 5-years-old at the time
That’s when she first reached out to SVdP for rent assistance and food boxes to help make ends meet. The first Christmas on her own with her kids, SVdP’s Adopt-A-Family program stepped in to make sure the family had something to celebrate as well.
“They not only provided us with gift for the kids, but a tree and ornaments and everything,” Denise remembers. “I just remember back then, and this was in 2013, I remember thinking I was going to give back when I could.”
But things would get a lot harder for Denise before they got better. She lived on her own with her kids for two years before she ended up losing her apartment.
“When I did become homeless, I didn’t want my kids to end up living in a shelter,” Denise says.
So, she sent her kids to live with their dad, and Denise lived in her car and crashed on friend’s couches when she could. Each night though, she knew she had something to look forward to.
“It gave me the opportunity, even though I didn’t have them living with me anymore, I still worked in the day, and I picked them up after school and I would bring them here,” Denise says.
Denise remembers the Family Dining Room being a safe, secure space for her to bond with her kids. And she remembers that they especially loved spending time in the Dream Center. They enjoyed reading and learning from tutors as they got older and made great friends.
“What I remember most is that my daughter learned multiplication here. They [her kids] were part of the Dream Center,” Denise says. “I don’t know how it came to be, but my daughter picked up multiplication. She learned it here, and she was only 5.”
“What I remember most is that my daughter learned multiplication here. They [her kids] were part of the Dream Center,” Denise says. “I don’t know how it came to be, but my daughter picked up multiplication. She learned it here, and she was only 5.”
The kids, now teenagers, are thriving, successful students in part because of what they learned in the Dream Center, Denise says.
Denise was finally able to break her cycle of homelessness after she moved back to San Fransisco to take care of her ailing mother. She moved there homeless as well but was there at the right time to get on the right housing list and benefit from services there. Shortly after, her ex-husband and kids moved back to California as well.
“I give it all to God,” Denise said of the fortune she found to get back on her feet. “I just had to change who I was and the way I was thinking.”
