Another way to service inside the cultural boundaries of The Church - which has an outreach outside of our cultural boundaries, is St Vincent de Paul Society in your parish area.
I am going to their meeting on Tuesday next in my own parish, which reminded me of this way of service inside (and outside) our cultural boundaries. St Vincent de Paul call their various boundaries “conferences” and there probably would be a conference in your parish, or a conference that embraces your parish. If you ring your parish office, they ideally should be able to give you a contact number or numbers for St Vinnies in your area. Meetings here in Australia are held once monthly in the evening. While visiting clients may take place during the day, in my parish we sometimes might do evening visits as well. Sometimes clients only need some kind of food, clothing or furniture - finances if we have it sometimes - but sometimes they are in such financial distress, they need a really listening, compassionate and empathic, ear as well. We don’t visit on our own, rather two or more. In Australia, we have a central main office where people can ring in and advise the kind of help that is needed - then these calls are sent out by the office to appropriate conferences where the client lives.
They do quite holy and important work - and the fact that they are parish or conference based with an outreach outside our cultural boundaries does mean that they have an evangelizing role in The Church. Evangelizing by available means is so very important, vital to our vocation and call as laity too, and highlighted for us in The Church today - and by various means.
