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Churches find a growing need as they reach out

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In church basements across Vermont on Thursday, needy Vermonters enjoyed lavish Thanksgiving dinners funded by charitable parishioners.

The annual holiday meals are perhaps the most visible symbol of churchly benevolence. Behind the scenes, though, the faith community has long played a vital role in delivering social services to neighbors in need. And this year, the number of people seeking assistance from houses of worship has spiked alongside rising fuel costs and a declining economy.

"We formerly would see about 30- to 40-person requests for food at our food shelf in a week," says Rev. Ralph Howe, Pastor of the Hedding United Methodist Church in Barre. "Now we have 147 people."

Numbers are up across the board, Howe says. At the church's weekly spaghetti meal, served up on Fridays, attendance used to run in the range of 75 people. Recently, as many as 150 people have come through the doors.

"We have been receiving many, many calls for assistance of all sorts, because the local community action agency has been out of funds for some things," Howe says.

Howe says the requests run the gamut, from help with electricity bills to rent to fuel. The demographic seeking help, he says, has shifted dramatically.

"In the past we saw more frequently what I would call generational poverty, where families had been living in poverty for a long time," he says. "… Most recently, over the past six months, we have begun seeing families where two people are working three jobs and just are not able to make it."

The new demands come as churches face their own financial hardships. The trusts and endowments on which many churches rely have been hit hard by an embattled stock mar-ket. Churchgoers, generally a crucial source of income, have in many cases seen their philanthropic capacity shrink.

"As you can expect, when markets collapse it means the endowment of churches are being hit as hard as anything else," Howe says. "So the capacity of churches to address the needs of the community has dropped because of those losses."

Tim Searles, head of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, says his organization continues to rely heavily on the local faith community. While the CVOEO is able to apply state and federal grants to specific programs that offer heating, utilities and housing, churches have the flexibility to focus their budgets on other items.

"Our experience is that faith-based communities are able to help with a lot of things we're not able to," Searles says. "They have flexibility in their donated funds, so if somebody needs clothes for a job interview, or personal hygiene items, or a few bucks to put gas in the tank to get to work before the first paycheck comes, they can help with that."

Rev. Linda Kulas at the United Church of Northfield says she's experienced the same influx in requests for assistance.

"I think it tends to fall when bills are due," she says. "We get several calls all at once."

With only a very small endowment and charitable offerings to fund the efforts, Kulas says the church tries to stretch its dollars as far as possible.

"We're in the middle of a stewardship campaign, but we're very sensitive to the fact that people's resources are limited," she says. "So we do the best we can with what we have."

That often means teaming up with other local churches to fully address an individual's request.

"Together we're able to cobble together the kind of help people need to keep the electricity on," she says. "No one church is able to just pay the full bill. It's really a united effort."

At the Salvation Army in Barre, Capt. Travis DeLong is trying to keep pace with new requests for help.

"We're finding that the need is up at least 50 percent over last year," DeLong says. "We're seeing a lot of first-time people coming in, people deciding whether to put food on the table or fuel in the tank."

Donations from the Salvation Army's annual kettle campaign comprise the organization's main source of income. DeLong is holding his breath waiting to see how this season's efforts fare.

"We'll know better in a few weeks how we're doing," he says.

Howe says everybody is challenged by a lack of resources, but that churches will continue to serve as sanctuaries, spiritual or financial, for people in need.

For Kulas, the work is part and parcel of her calling.

"That is who we are and that is what our faith is about," she says. "It's what Jesus preaches. It's what we're about. It's our reason for being."