Springs nonprofits cope with soaring demand, flat donations
At a time when just about everyone knows someone who has been laid off, it’s no surprise that a growing number of people sought help from Pikes Peak area safety net organizations in 2009.
What’s remarkable is that the agencies were able to meet the boom in demand, because donations of money and goods rarely kept pace. They did it by reallocating resources within their own organizations, working more collaboratively with other agencies to avoid duplication of services, putting in more hours and honoring requests to use donations to directly help clients.
“No one’s giving money to improve carpeting and staffing,” said the Rev. Joseph Vazquez, chief executive officer of Springs Rescue Mission, which gets more than 80 percent of its income through thousands of small donations. “They want it for direct services They’re more conscious of where their giving is going.”
He said the organization, which helps the homeless and needy families, saw about a 30 percent increase in demand for its services this year, while donations remained stable.
“Donations, thankfully —- we didn’t see any significant dropoff,” he said. “We’re pretty confident we’ll meet our expectations.”
Rochelle Schlortt, spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Colorado Springs, said she’s not sure how much the agency will have taken in monetarily for 2009, since end-of-year donations are still coming in. But she said donations of “hard” items — canned food, clothing, small appliances, baby food, formula and diapers — are down.
“Demand has risen so quickly that donations cannot simply keep up with demand,” she said.
A few weeks ago, she said, a Catholic Charities program that services mostly single mothers and their children almost ran out of jars of baby food, so the agency dug into its pocketbook to buy more.
“Everything goes out as soon as it comes in,” she said. “Everybody who’s hurting right now is coming down and getting the maximum amount of food.”
The agency’s Marian House soup kitchen is feeding about 600 on most days, compared with about 400 two years ago, she said. And demand is up about 30 percent in the last year for Marian House Client Services, which helps people — mostly adult men — get IDs, clothing and other things they’ll need to land a job.
At Care & Share, the food bank for southern Colorado, monetary donations are basically flat, said spokeswoman Lisa Amend, and food donations are down significantly even as demand has increased at least 30 percent since July. For the holiday season, the agency took in 178,700 pounds of food, a 48 percent decrease from last year.
“What that means is that we have to take funds and purchase more food,” said Lori Kapu, chief operating and programs officer. “It’s difficult out there.”
Spokesmen for several agencies said things could have been worse had it not been for a $335,000 donation in August from the El Pomar Foundation’s Colorado Assistance Fund to 25 Pikes Peak area nonprofits.
Late in 2008, El Pomar made a similar donation, and a spokeswoman said the board is considering a third round of CAF funding in 2010.
“CAF III is on the horizon,” said Josie Burke.
