The Good Samaritan Ministry

Who We Are

Like many in our country the Good Samaritan Ministry has been dealing with the fallout of COVID-19. Many of our community members have lived paycheck to paycheck and have been particularly hard hit. Many jobs will not return as businesses are being forced to close. The need to pay rent, utilities, food and diapers, find employment, emotional and spiritual support remains the same. With 25 years of history serving Slidell, Alton and Pearl River we are poised to be a source of strength and comfort to our hurting community, providing help as lives are rebuilt. We are hoping to raise funds to meet these ever increasing needs. God blesses us every day.

The Good Samaritan Ministry (Good Sams) is a non-profit, non-denominational charity that serves the poor and those coping with emergencies in the Louisiana towns of Slidell, Alton, and Pearl River (population approximately 30,000 of a 242,000 parish population).  Established in 1993 as an outreach ministry of St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church, Good Sams has funded its ministry primarily through tithing from St. Luke and St. Margaret Mary Catholic Churches, private donations and grant/fund-raising awards. With a staff of over one hundred five volunteers and donated office space, Good Sams allocates 100% of its budget to funding direct services to the needy. We have fine tuned our services so that the help we do provide is constructive and supporting rather than merely a bandaid covering a larger problem. We strive to provide our clients with the tools they need to rise out of their crisis and move toward a more stable and functioning lifestyle. To that end we are developing a new "position" (unpaid of course), a Resource counselor designed to give more hands on help and support beyond what is initially provided. We are blessed to live in a community that supports our ministry, however the significant need of the community is ever increasing.

One of the telling features of our ministry is the commitment of the volunteers who work with us daily, month after month, year after year. We have volunteers who joined the ministry when we first opened for business more than 20 years ago! We love what we do and know we are on the right track, doing what God asks of us.

These are a few examples of responses from our client feedback questionnaire. From a client we helped with a light bill, “Words can’t real explain how much this made me feel about getting assistance with you all but I can really say that I really appreciate you guys so much …A warm feeling in my heart about the help and it made me feel that they actually have people that care, but the best part was being able to join you all with the opening prayer,” and from another client we helped with rent “I really appreciate the aid I have received . It helped me kinda get back on track with my every day stress level,” and this from a woman who was in a terrible place in her life, “Got a lot more than I bargained for. Was given a weekend in a motel while my son and I wait for admission into Family Promise program (a faith based shelter for families.) Didn't ask for it but it was given just the same. Very blessed!) And we feel blessed daily by these clients as they find relief from some of their burdens.

The following recently published article is getting the word out about Good Sams and our impact within the community.
Good Sams: Meeting a huge need
Posted By: Site Administrator Clarion Herald, Peter Finney Jr., St. Luke the Evangelist, The Good Samaritan Ministry-Good Sams
By Peter Finney Jr., Clarion Herald
The image of a Catholic church parish offering charitable assistance to the needy sometimes leans heavily on the “mom-and-pop” theme: a few inspired volunteers, here and there, offering food or emergency cash to individuals in need of a helping hand.
Twenty-six years ago, St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Slidell decided to connect that familiar base of inspired volunteers with a leadership structure and sleek technology to form The Good Samaritan Ministry (Good Sams), which has grown into a model for east St. Tammany civil parish of Catholic social teaching blended with measurement tools to assess the effectiveness of its efforts.
“All we’re trying to do is to meet the needs of the community,” said Sue Rotolo, a former IBM executive with high-level computer programming skills who has helped run the program for the last 17 years, succeeding founding director Ann Creighton. “There are two things we provide. We offer immediate financial aid for any bill of necessity, and then we are exceptionally well-networked with resources that are available to help people long term. We often link those two.
“We practice good stewardship. We require a lot of validation and verification before we give out aid, and we are 100% volunteer-run. That allows us to be a good steward of the money that comes in and goes back to the community...