HUMBLE is the word that comes to mind after spending time with the Reverend Francis Duffy.

Rev. Duffy has been conducting outreach services for 15 years.

The Reverend was awarded an OAM this year for his services to veterans.

In the early years of his pastoral care Reverend Duffy was visiting WWI, WWII, Korean and Vietnam War veterans, now there are very few WWII veterans still in the program.

The outreach services which Reverend Duffy provides are a part of the All Saints Church’s pastoral care program supported by the Wests RSL Sub-Branch at Nelson Bay.

The Reverend conducts several hundred veteran home and hospital visits each year.

Reverend Duffy told News Of The Area, when he was told about the OAM he was in two minds as to whether he should take it, or not, as he was being recognised simply for doing what he does.

“It’s important to our veterans that there is someone there; that someone simply cares enough to come.”

“All Saints has an extensive pastoral care program supporting the wider community, plus the Op-Shop in Yacaaba Street, from which 100 percent of the proceeds go into local community programs,” he said.

Reverend Duffy is a fourth generation service man, and was in the National Service as a young man.

His unit was on-call ready to go to Malaysia to stop the surge of communism through Asia when he was a young man.

Service through the armed forces is not the only way that Reverend Duffy’s family have helped in Australia as Rev. Duffy’s sister Jeanette Antrum, who is also a resident of Port Stephens, has also been honoured with an OAM for her services to the community.

 

By Marian SAMPSON