LAKEWOOD —Linda Marsh and her husband gave up their low-paying jobs in Florida four years ago to start a new life in Lakewood after a promise of higher-paying work.
The jobs never materialized and the couple — both in their late 50s — fell on hard times. They were dealt another blow when their monthly food stamp allocation was cut last year.
Linda Marsh said it’s often a fine line between having enough to eat and going hungry the final week before food stamps arrive.
Thanks to a collaboration between a Lakewood church and the , that stress has been diminished.
Marsh was one of roughly 700 people standing in line recently in the parking lot of Phillips United Methodist Church at 1450 S. Pierce St. to collect a basket packed with food.
“It’s been a godsend for these people to be here, it really is,” Marsh said. “It helps us a whole lot. By the end of the month, we’re stretching and scraping — without them, there’d be no food.”
Almost 10,000 pounds of food was distributed in 250 baskets that afternoon.
The program started in 2010 with trucks delivering food to rural areas, said Janie Gianotsos, the food bank’s director of marketing and community relations. It was successful, and organizers expanded to pockets in the metro area that needed help.
The partnership had just started when the Rev. Linda Pelletier arrived in Lakewood from Colorado Springs in the summer of 2012.
Back then, 15 baskets were handed out every month.
That quickly changed after Pelletier began working with a and civic groups. One goal was identifying neighborhood needs that local churches could help address.
In the case of the Ward 3 neighborhood, it was families struggling to put food on their plates.
“This is a nice neighborhood, but there’s a lot of poverty,” Pelletier said. “It obviously makes it more convenient for these folks to not have to go a long way to get food service assistance.”
Now a truck full of food arrives the first Tuesday of every month. A couple dozen church volunteers scramble to unload the trailer as they pack boxes of groceries.
Lisa Renshaw said she cleans houses to help support her four sons, a grandson and daughter-in-law while also babysitting the child of a family friend. The food basket provides about four days of meals.
“It helps stretch the food budget,” she said. “We could not get along without this.”
The church also opens its doors to homeless families in collaboration with and volunteers provide a once-a-month home-cooked meal to the community.
“With what she and the church have done in combination with other partners, we’ve seen a transformation in this community,” said District 3 Councilman Pete Roybal. “Graffiti has dropped 70 percent, the crime rate has dropped, and people are taking pride in the community.”
Austin Briggs: 303-954-1729 or abriggs@denverpost.com
