In Lyon, a church is transformed into a solidarity grocery store to help the most vulnerable

With her cap screwed on her head, Karine walks through the wide open door of the Saint-Camille church, rue des Docks, in the 9th arrondissement of Lyon. Inside, the walls are bathed in the multicolored light of the stained glass windows. With her empty cart, she admires this spectacle before the volunteers of the Saint-Camille Vaise* solidarity grocery store call her. Since 2011, at the initiative of the Saint-Vincent de Paul Conference, and before being taken over by a parish association in 2019, the place combines worship and solidarity.

The two spaces are separated by a large screen. Karine, an agnostic, sees no incongruity in this, quite the contrary. The fifty-year-old remembers her grandparents, filled with Christian charity, and finds it “almost obvious” that the sacred building houses a structure that allows her refrigerator to be filled at a reduced price. Directed towards the grocery store by a social worker from the metropolis of Lyon, Karine, who lives with her son, a student, had to give up her job as a rope access technician after damaging her back and neck. She has been going to the solidarity grocery store for three years. “I was able to get cereal pancakes for my vegetarian diet,” she appreciates.

Preserve human dignity

Farzana, an Afghan refugee, has just finished her shopping, accompanied by Erfan, one of her four children. “Mom says it helps a lot,” the boy translates. Then it’s Roger’s turn. Living on a modest retirement pension, the former building caretaker leaves with enough to last two or three days for around fifteen euros. This help does not make precariousness disappear, but it avoids these silent shifts where we first give up meat, then fruits and the dignity of choice. He admits: “Without this grocery store, I don’t know what I would do,” before greeting Sébastien.

This tall, 52-year-old truck driver is on disability. Not only a beneficiary, he also helps out as a volunteer every Saturday. Faced with each customer hesitating in front of the refrigerated glass doors, he says in a light tone: “White cheese in a small or large jar? Fruit or plain yogurt? He adapts his advice to each person’s eating habits, religious practices and tastes, reassuring about the safety of the products. His presence says as much as his words. Here, no one is judged, everyone has the right to reliable products.

Sébastien can count on the help of three high school students who benefit from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes youth Pass’Région. In exchange for 80 hours of volunteering, this system contributes to financing your driving license. Ali, 16, welcomes customers and records their names, while Mariam and Lucrèce, 17, work the shelves. “It is a strong symbol to offer a welcome to people in difficulty in a church,” they recognize. At these words, behind the cash register, Pascale Oulié smiles. For ten years, she has presided over the destiny of the solidarity grocery store which opens three mornings a week. The structure redistributed 46 tonnes of food and hygiene products and helped 467 people.

Relaunch of mass

Noon. Pascale closes her cash register and does the accounts: 14 people passed through, or 28 beneficiaries in total, 174 kg of food and 122 euros collected. “We don’t do this for the recipe,” she slips. Running such a service is not easy.” Obtaining and maintaining authorization from the Ministry of Solidarity requires respecting a series of strict criteria, from product traceability to health standards. “At first, the shelves came from donations, then the association invested in more suitable furniture,” explains Pascale.

As for the electricity bill, it is shared with the Orthodox community to whom the church is lent for worship. While the last regular Catholic mass dates back to the 1990s, a monthly Sunday celebration has been relaunched since September under the leadership of Father Bernard Badaud, administrator of the parish. But, today, the real marker of Saint-Camille remains the grocery store. “It corresponds entirely to pastoral service in the outskirts to the most precarious,” believes the priest. And to conclude on this Christmas Eve: “Could the Saint-Camille Vaise solidarity grocery store be the most beautiful crèche in the neighborhood?”

* parishdevaise.fr/epicerie-solidaire-saint-camille-vaise