The cupboards at Community Ministry aren’t bare yet, but they’re getting uncomfortably close to empty. And the new Mother Hubbard in charge, director Joyce Neufeld, worries that this is just the beginning of hard times.
“Usually this freezer is full,” she says, lifting the lid on an industrial-size stand-alone freezer that’s the exact opposite of full. “And over here, this walk-in would be floor-to-ceiling with food.”
As it is, there are a couple of cakes and a handful of boxes of perishables.
“With the economy the way it is, we have more people than ever who need food and fewer people than ever donating food,” Neufeld says. “That’s a scary combination.”
The nonprofit food and clothing bank, which has been serving southwest Denver since 1968, is still managing to take care of the people who arrive nonstop on food-bank days to get their allotment of about two weeks’ worth of food. But Neufeld and food-bank manager Jerry Docherty are concerned that after the holidays, when people traditionally give even less than normal, Community Ministry will be in dire need.
“We’re considered to be ’emergency food,’ ” Docherty says. “When people come here, they’re already hurting.”
The agency is seeking funding from this year’s Post-News Season to Share campaign.
Even with the holidays in full swing and the community focused more on giving, things have been tight. Community Ministry’s annual holiday box giveaway after Thanksgiving found lines out the front door and around the block, and since then Docherty has had to turn requests away.
“I have people calling to say, ‘I don’t have enough to buy gifts for my kids, can you help?’ ” Docherty says. “They’re crying, and I can’t do anything for them.”
Neighborhood resident Elaine Lopez credits Community Ministry with keeping her family from going hungry on several occasions over the past few years, especially since a recent back injury forced her to take leave from her job as an access-a-Ride driver.
“I’m a single mom, and I’ve had a tough time making ends meet sometimes,” Lopez says. “To have a place like this to come, to know that I can count on being able to get food and clothing, it’s a blessing.”
When Lopez’s granddaughter Mya, now 7 months old, was born, Lopez and her daughter, Melissa Dominguez, were worried that they wouldn’t be able to afford enough clothes. “We came over here, and they had receiving blankets and little onesies, all kinds of things we needed,” Lopez says. “That way we could spend money on the stuff we needed that Mya wouldn’t grow out of, and things we all needed, like food.”
Neufeld, who took over the director job in November, has been brainstorming with Docherty and their volunteer staff for ways to bring in more donations so families like the Lopezes can be helped. “We’re hitting the schools hard,” she says, “and that’s always been one of our best resources. But it’s not going to be enough.”
Community Ministry
Address: 1755 S. Zuni St., Denver
In operation since: 1968
Number served in 2007: 19,625
Staff: Two full time, 90 to 100 volunteers
Yearly budget: $172,500
Percentage of funds directly to clients/services: 88 percent
