DeSales Service Works (DSW) is a mission of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales that hosts school and parish groups who travel to Camden, NJ, to practice works of mercy and Salesian little virtues, to pray, reflect, and learn. Volunteers encounter Christ in this place of obvious need, and are encouraged to bring insight, solidarity, and service back home to their regular setting.
The DSW volunteer house provides a base for students to go out to join the good work of our “service partners.” These include Holy Name School, the Last Stop (a street-level drug and alcohol recovery community with meetings here in Camden and the Kensington section of Philadelphia), and Joseph’s House of Camden (a homeless shelter for about 75 women and men).
DSW groups join the partners in offering concrete help—but most of all volunteers also get to talk to, listen to—encounter—people in need.
For the last two years, two days a week, DSW groups have participated in a pop-up service fair sponsored by the Agape Project. The name is the Biblical Greek word for unselfish, unconditional love, and well represents the approach that is evident in the project.
In a large vacant lot near Joseph’s House, student volunteers join the regular team to staff tables at the pop-up with hot lunch, coffee, snacks, socks, books, and other donations. Representatives from rehab and behavioural health outreaches set up tables. Nurses, doctors, and medical students from a Camden hospital offer first aid, wound care, and harm reduction. A shower van, a water sprinkler, tables, canopies, trash cans, picnic lounge chairs, coffee, food. All this arrives and comes together in a whirl of energy, hospitality, and generosity.
By 10:00 AM everything is set up, and friends appear from all directions—from abandoned buildings, from encampments under bridges or in patches of scraggly woods, from broken down rented rooms, and from shelters clustered in South Camden. Agape uses the word “friend” to refer to the participating neighbors who are homeless, poor, broken, and emptied by addiction and life on the street.
This is important because—while there is camaraderie, humor, friendliness on the street, and even generosity and kindness—the bottom line is survival. So much interaction is transactional, scheming, selfish, with an end goal of “what’s in it for me?”
Christian service, Christ’s agape love, is offered without asking anything in return. This is a sign and reminder that the world of survival is not the only way of living. Service hopes the friend will find a path to a stable, happy life—but whether that is the outcome or not, we have this moment to be kind, patient, and gentle.
As St. Francis de Sales reminds us, the opportunity to do “great things” (solve homelessness, cure addiction, heal mental illness) does not come every day. But we can bring “little virtues” to each moment and to each situation—each friend.
It has been wonderful for DSW to be a part of the positive, welcoming atmosphere. It is amazing that everything that makes the service fair possible has to be transported to the site. Volunteers arriving in cars, trucks, trailers, and vans ready with supplies and open hearts to welcome friends from the community. It has been wonderful for DSW to be a part of the positive, welcoming atmosphere.
This summer Agape purchased a building in Camden, not far from the vacant lot, to serve as home base for all the good work. This building in Camden will enable all of us involved in this project to be even more firmly located in the neighborhood among the friends. DeSales Service Works will be a part of that outreach building—encountering neighbors not just on Thursdays and Saturdays but on every day DSW has volunteers. This is all due to the generosity of our Wilmington friends.
For sixteen years, three high schools in Wilmington: Salesianum, Padua, and Ursuline have undertaken SALSTHON. It began as an all-night dance marathon and has developed into a generous group effort and a very fun event. This past school year, DeSales Service Works was the beneficiary of this awesome effort!
The connection between SALSTHON and DSW is not new. Since 2008, students from all three schools have traveled the 40 minutes to Camden to participate in service, reflection, and prayer with DSW. In fact, every Salesianum student serves at DSW in his junior year. They arrive in the morning and return before the end of the school day. Student leaders from all three schools, together with their faculty moderators, came for a day of service together in March. The experience, working with our partners, praying, applying Salesian insights, and encountering friends, fueled their enthusiasm and commitment.
We were later asked to apply to be the SALSTHON beneficiary and —no doubt because of students’ transformative firsthand, hands-on experience at DSW!
SALSTHON 2026 raised $183,543.54! DSW is so grateful for the generosity of these school communities. They can be proud of their efforts and generosity. The donation is put to work in the new Agape building, serving as a “field hospital” (to use Pope Francis’ image for the Church) for DSW to continue working with our partners in service to sisters and brothers in need.
Learn more about DeSales Service Works here.
Fr. Mike McCue, OSFS
DeSales Service Works
Camden, NJ
