The lines grab your attention.
Inside and outside of the thrift store, you figure the lines could not be longer if they were giving the stuff away.
Out in the parking lot, on the other side of the food pantry’s big glass double doors, men and women already stand in a queue, despite the doors not opening for nearly two hours.
In her office, just off the main lobby of the Sister Carmen Community Center in Lafayette, Guio Bravo, 39, sits at her desk awaiting yet another family.
It has been two years since we last spoke. Back then, she was brand new to her job as a support-services coordinator. Back then, she cried all the time.
In those days, it was always the women who came in. Husbands and boyfriends stayed in the car, trying to avoid the shame. The women would cry. She would join them.
“Now, I just get up when the tears start, walk around and take a breath,” she said.
Sister Carmen is a nonprofit, nonreligious center that provides basic-needs assistance to residents of east Boulder County. As need is everywhere, business has been brisk.
Dee Zucco, the development director, says the center currently assists 1,462 families, up from 1,367 in January.
The numbers, she said, have been increasing for years now. The difference over the past year is the type of people knocking on the door.
Bravo’s day starts at 10 a.m. when the first client family arrives.
“It is a lot more middle-class and professional people coming in for the first time,” she said. “It is people with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, some Ph.Ds. They cry just as hard.”
Gone is the nervous excitement I remembered. She seems a bit weary now, a woman who has heard too much, whose heart still breaks, but she has no more tears to shed.
The stories remain the same: Clients cannot pay the rent, and shutoff of the utilities is a day away. An eviction notice arrived. They repossessed the car last night.
“Two years ago, there was maybe one thing they needed help with,” she said. “Now, it is everything.”
The professionals come to her in search of assistance “because they just can’t take the drastic step of applying for food stamps or other government assistance,” she said.
“They have the hardest time communicating what is going on because they are embarrassed, ashamed and overwhelmed by what their life has become.”
What used to take maybe a half-hour now runs two hours, walking clients through steps they need to take to reclaim their lives, she said.
The hardest part is seeing, now more than ever, clients who had gotten on their feet come to her door again.
Still, she loves her job and dwells on the positive. Last month, three clients called to tell her they had found full-time work.
“You feel like a million dollars when you see that success,” she said.
There is still a half-hour to go before the food pantry opens, and the line has grown by half.
“My hope is that one day things change and none of this is needed,” Bravo said, looking out the door. “It would be a very good thing if we were no longer needed.”
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
