Sometimes I Write

In 2006 my husband and I founded a ministry caring for the homeless youth and adults, at-risk teens, the poor, drug dealers, hippies, prostitutes, and anyone who called the streets of Boulder their home. We sought out the hurting and brokenhearted to build positive relationships with them. Through those relationships we did our best to help our friends on the streets experience the love and grace of Jesus, and we walked alongside them to encourage forward progress in their lives.

For eight years we served a hot, home-cooked meal in one of the parks in Boulder EVERY Saturday night – rain, snow, sleet, or blazing hot sun. We had an amazing volunteer team comprised of three churches and a handful of friends who cooked the food in their homes then met us in the park for two hours of food and fellowship. We did plenty of cooking large meals as well as our numbers fluctuated between 50 people in the coldest parts of winter to 250 people in the middle of traveling season in the summer.

During that time we also did regular street outreach, helping our friends connect with the resources they needed. We provided supplies as we had them, driving friends to appointments, visiting them in the hospital or in jail, and sometimes just sat at Starbucks with them sipping hot chocolate or coffee.

After a year-long sabbatical in 2015, we realized our ministry was shifting. Our focus was no longer only on the homeless, but on the working poor of our community. So many of the people we loved were struggling to make ends meet. We did what we could to ease their burden whether it be physical, mental, or spiritual.

As some of our friends moved off the streets, we assisted with boxes of food, toiletries, and cleaning supplies to help them get their home up and running. We also helped out families in need as they were referred to us by our friends, and assisted with emergency needs in our community.

As our life seasons changed, so did our ministry, and eventually our focus completely shifted and SEVENS became the umbrella for the food bank and mobile pantry we ran, and the ongoing mentoring relationships we had. One of our volunteer churches that did Supper in the Park with us took up the mantel of Saturday night meals two times a month, and they call those meal SEVENS.

In September of 2020, we contracted the first variant of Covid-19. My husband and I were both hospitalized, and after coming home, we both took months to recover. We survived that terrible time with the help of our friends and our three teenagers who stepped up to care for us as we healed. Things changed again, and after running our food pantry for 12+ years, it was time to let that season end. Though I recovered more quickly than my husband, I no longer had the energy to pull off what it takes to successfully run a food pantry. Two years later, we are both still struggling with a few Long-Covid symptoms. We are still loving people, one person and family at a time, and we start with the people right in front of us. We are SEVENS, so our mission lives on, it’s just not as visible as it once was.