What you should know about Inter-Faith Community Services includes this: Early one morning, just before Thanksgiving, cars started lining up outside its building on South Irving Street in unincorporated Arapahoe County. People kept coming, until there was a cavalcade sitting in the road for blocks. When the gates opened at 9 a.m., volunteers handed out boxes filled with the makings of a fine holiday meal to 500 families and then took 100 more boxes to senior citizens.
Among the families were the newly unemployed. Among them, too, were those who had come to the nonprofit for help before. They might have been carrying an eviction notice and needed rent money. Maybe they were picking out clothes for the kids. It long has been the case that more women than men show up at the front desk. But in recent years, the number of men has been growing and, as with some women, they may break down in tears. Life takes its hard turns, and few things bring that home more than finding yourself at a food bank.
Inter-Faith Community Services is one of the agencies applying for Season to Share funding. The nonprofit was founded 46 years ago by Maida Navis, a community volunteer.
“What she noticed was that there was this population of poor people that no one paid attention to,” says Sandra Blythe-Perry, who has been executive director of Inter-Faith for 13 years. “It was almost a hidden population because you know you’re not supposed to have poor people in affluent Douglas County, in Centennial or Lone Tree.”
Inter-Faith serves the working poor of Englewood, Glendale, Highlands Ranch, Littleton, Lone Tree, Sheridan and unincorporated Arapahoe County. A family of four with a monthly gross income of less than $3,269 a month would qualify for help. Besides the food and clothing bank and the rent and mortgage assistance, Inter-Faith Community Services also provides transitional housing for once-homeless families, hearing aids, eyeglasses, crime-victim assistance, bus tokens and gas cards, among other services. Clients meet with case managers who help them with budgeting and planning.
“Our focus is prevention,” Blythe- Perry says. “We try to stop homelessness and hunger before they happen.”
Inter-Faith could not do its work without help, and that work is necessary, hard and often hectic.
But here’s what else you should know about Inter-Faith Community Services. In the office, they keep a letter dated Nov. 16, 2010. It comes from a Centennial family. The husband, 58, lost his job of 24 years in December 2003. Husband and wife found part-time work, and they managed to get by until early 2009. But the husband still had not found a full-time job and the family had gone through their savings and the day came that he went to Inter-Faith for food.
“It was one of the saddest days in my life when I came home from work that afternoon and saw the bags of food spread out on our counter and the realization that ‘it had truly come to that’ hit me full force,” the woman wrote. “But my husband told me how kind you had been, how nonjudgmental. How you had given him a much- needed gas card and even a family pass to South Suburban recreation centers good for several months. . . . Thank you for the good work you are doing each day. Know that you are a great blessing to many. Know that you are love in action.”
The family vowed to give back when it was able. That letter came with a $500 check.
Tina Griego writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
Inter-Faith Community Services
Mailing address: 3370 S. Irving St. Englewood, CO 80110
In operation since: 1964
Number served last year: 16,861 people
Staff: 12
Yearly budget: $2.4 million
Percentage of funds directly to clients/service: 97
