Antal sits down with The Vindicator
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
On the day rumors started to swirl of a new president being considered for the St. Vincent de Paul Society local council, Brian Antal, current volunteer president, decided to clear the air.
Antal discussed community concerns, new programs and the future of the society Monday afternoon with The Vindicator.
“We will be here for a long time to come,” Antal said of the society.
The dining hall, located at 208 W. Front St. downtown, reopened Monday with a new hall manager after it was closed last week because of personnel issues. The former manager of the kitchen, Ralph “Skip” Barone, resigned from his paid position Nov. 27, and the kitchen was closed the following week for weekday lunch when volunteers walked out.
Last week, Antal posted a note on the door to the dining hall to announce the closure.
“It was very difficult to do,” he said. “Only being closed for a week and getting it reopened is a real testament to the society.”
After the closure, volunteers and others came forward to highlight their concerns with some of the policies there and Antal’s leadership.
While Antal has been president, and with the board’s support, two policies were implemented that caused much of the concern.
In the first policy, volunteers and workers were told they were not allowed to eat the food served at the dining hall, and they were not allowed to take any of the product home.
“No one was ever told they can’t eat there,” Antal said. “Our organization is very conscious of the donor intent.”
A donor’s intent is to give to the less fortunate, the working poor and the poor.
“If you are a volunteer, take your apron off, walk outside and get in line and get yourself a tray of food,” Antal said. “That was made abundantly clear for forever.”
The same policy is in place at the St. Vincent de Paul Society’s pantry at 317 Mount Carmel Ave.
Another reason the policy was implemented was to avoid the circumstances that happened years ago. In 2010, Diane Terry of Lowellville was convicted on charges of theft and forgery after she was accused of stealing almost $290,000 between 2005 and 2007 while a clerical employee for the society. She was given a jail sentence of more than two years.
“We didn’t want to end up in a situation where we were years ago,” Antal said. “It was a lack of policies, procedures, oversight and leadership that unfortunately got the society in the [mess] it was in.”
Another policy recently put into place stopped the handing out of wrapped hot meals to go and more than one lunch bag per person.
“It’s a dining hall,” Antal said. “It’s not a takeaway. Our intent is to feed those in front of us. We are giving back to the person who is there. We don’t have a meals-on-wheels program. We just aren’t set up for that.”
Antal stressed the board members vote on the polices and pass them.
“This isn’t a dictatorship,” he said. “Something like this, it is brought before the board, discussed and voted on.”
The board is made up of about 20 St. Vincent de Paul Society conference presidents who are a part of area parishes. Not all the presidents are active, but Antal says there are typically eight to 10 of them at the society’s monthly meetings.
Antal has been the president of the Northeast Ohio Diocesan Council, which includes Mahoning, Trumbull and Ashtabula counties, since 2011. He is in his second three-year term now. Before he accepted the position, he was a conference president at St. Dominic’s Catholic Parish.
What needed to be addressed when he came on as president were fundraising, policies and procedures, he said.
“It has been a fluid process,” he said. “I think anytime you take a job, no matter what it is, [there are] surprises. We started by instituting new fundraisers and some other things.”
The brand of St. Vincent de Paul had taken a hit, and its reputation needed to be restored. Previous leadership was focused on feeding people but was not business-oriented.
“Their focus was just on feeding people and not worrying about how it got done or if it got done in the proper way,” Antal said.
In 2012, the organization’s 501(c)(3) status was revoked by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS revoked the status because 990 tax forms for the nonprofit were not filed for three consecutive years.
Antal doesn’t believe the board at that time knew the 990 forms had not been filed because there was an issue with the accountant.
“It was a shock,” he said. “It didn’t really put a blip on us. It could have. We worked through it.”
The organization was allowed to continue to do work as a charitable organization during the time. St. Vincent de Paul received a reinstatement letter from the IRS in June 2014.
Antal also addressed Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley’s ending its program with the society.
“There’s a history that goes back long before Brian Antal,” he said.
Food costs were actually less this year without Second Harvest. Most of the food at the food bank is distributed for free, but the produce, some of the canned goods and donated product goes out at 10 cents per pound, said Mike Iberis, food bank executive director.
Antal’s figures shows the society spending $70,702.42 on food and paper products from Second Harvest and others last fiscal year compared with $53,359.62 this fiscal year.
“We are all about helping as many people as possible,” Antal stressed.
Several new programs were implemented this year including a new backpack program where hundreds of backpacks are distributed. This year, an estimated 105,000 to 108,000 meals have been served at the dining hall.
Some have said Antal would prefer to see food be thrown out than for it to go out, which he says is false. If there is too much food left over, he says, it should be stored and used for another day.
He does have concerns about what the closure of the dining hall and publicity that followed will do to the society.
“Only time will tell,” he said. “I worry about it every night.”