Dave Ringle reflects on Vincentian values after nearly six years of service

On July 1, 2025, Dave Ringle stepped down as the executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, St. Therésè Conference, in Juneau, Alaska. He is succeeded by Jennifer Skinner, the new executive director of the society.

As I have journeyed in my position as leader of St. Vincent de Paul within Juneau, I have appreciated the Vincentian values, rooted in the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Within our organization, there has been a renewed emphasis on the core Vincentian values: simplicity, gentleness, humility, selflessness, and zeal. It is a reminder that spiritual values matter more than our balance sheet.

When I stepped into the role of executive director of the Juneau Conference of St. Vincent de Paul 5 ½ years ago, I had no plans other than to be an interim leader until the right person to lead the organization was found. A grantor once asked me what separated St. Vincent de Paul from other social service organizations and I didn’t have an answer. I talked about focus on mission, but I wasn’t clear what our mission exactly was.

Our local mission statement is very general: “We provide spiritual and material charity and work for justice for all people.” That describes a multitude of nonprofit organizations. I would find my mission in the national St. Vincent de Paul mission statement:

A network of friends, inspired by Gospel values, growing in holiness and building a more just world through personal relationships with and service to people in need.

Over the course of the next few years, I would find the importance of those values in ways that clarified how I could live out the mission of the organization I was asked to lead.

Solving poverty is not simple, if even possible. Asking a neighbor who comes to our door is much simpler: “How can I help?” This question is a simple way to start a relationship. Treating people gently, with respect, when so often they are met with gruff disdain on the streets, changes the way the poor look at us and we look at the poor.

Service changes when there is a relationship involved. Some of the most painful and deep conversations I have had were with parents who were struggling to help a child lost to addiction or mental health, and some of my most rewarding conversations have been with those I’ve served.

Not all of them have been successful. Sometimes it is just having a woman who used to be scorned — and used to spit at others — come to the door and ask for a cup of coffee. Not all acts of service change the world, but we also don’t always realize how our actions change others.

We can use service as a way to feel better about ourselves, but once we enter into relationships, service changes.

Service within relationships is not a recipe for our version of success, but an opportunity to find an individual’s required support and the needs that must be met for him to feel valued in life. Too many times I’ve heard homeless people feel like they are always invisible or treated as undesirable.

I’ve heard someone say that despite the problems of a homeless campground, it was the one place they could feel comfortable and accepted without worrying about being treated as less than human. If people are going to change it is because they receive both the challenge to change and the respect with which they feel they are treated.

Humility can change relationships when people think of each other as equals, rather than one in a position of power. In many ways this can help people gain control and power over their own lives. There have been times when our home visit team has had to say they did not have the power or the resources to solve our neighbor’s problem, but sitting down and listening humbly can open doors where others discover ways to gain the power to solve their problems themselves. People respond to being treated with dignity and respect.

St. Vincent de Paul would say that we get to know Jesus through the poor. I’ve sometimes said that I’ve seen Christ crucified in the forgotten and the destitute. But it is deeper than that. Jesus summed up the commandments as loving God and loving our neighbor. When he was challenged with the question, “who is my neighbor,” he answered with the parable of the good Samaritan. In Matthew 25, immediately after the parable of the talents, Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats at the final judgement. Those who fed him, gave him drink, and clothed him, asked when did they do this. Jesus’s answer was, “As often as you did this to the least, you did it to me.”

We all live our lives according to principles of faith. If not a formal faith, there are always elements we choose to believe in and value. We all place values forefront in our lives. Sometimes our actions speak those values more effectively than any words.

I think of my faith in terms of fruits of the spirit. Do my actions sow patience, love, kindness, gentleness, peace, joy, faithfulness, and self-control? As people professing faith, how often do our actions and our words produce these fruits — or do we produce the opposite?  Growing in holiness is something that happens serving in faith. But that service reveals more than we expect.

Serving those in need can be done for many reasons. We can ease our guilt. We can try to make a difference. We can feel that we are providing a needed service for those whom we feel cannot help themselves.

We can also strive to grow as individuals, learning about ourselves, our imperfections and our strengths. I was tired of hearing the slogan “we are lifelong learners” but I have constantly learned and grown through the five years of work with the society. It is work, but it is also transforming work.

Selflessness is not always easy. Yet around me through my 5 ½ years as leader of St. Vincent de Paul, I have watched workers and volunteers, even tenants of my low-income housing units, selflessly go above and beyond to help others. In many ways, this selflessness shows the final Vincentian value: zeal.

I benefited from being one of many involved in the work of St. Vinnie’s. Between dedicated workers who go above and beyond to a committed board and cadre of volunteers who support each other. It is said that to go fast, you can do it alone, but to go far you can do it together.

As I step down from leadership of St. Vincent de Paul, I do not lose my zeal, my selflessness, my gentleness, or humility. None of us are perfect, and I’ve omitted simplicity. But I pray and search for ways to continue living these values through my life. It will take faith and the support of the Vincentian community. But future service will beckon — the Lord knows — and will point the direction if I’m observant enough to notice and follow.