Valet & Hot Sauce

by John Putnam, Colorado Episcopal Service Corps

Like the valet at any hotel or fine dining establishment, Jesse Brown parks and retrieves patrons’ vehicles, helps them with their luggage, and remains courteous at all times. Guests know he can be trusted to keep their belongings safe.

Unlike other valets, Brown has clients who tend toward homelessness. Their possessions are stuffed in backpacks or shopping carts, and their vehicles generally have just two wheels. Still, Brown carefully guards these prized possessions and wheels, hauling many of them into the church sacristy, where they will remain safe until the owners come to claim them, usually right after dinner.

This bicycle and backpack valet service is just one of the ways that volunteers at St. Clare’s Ministries — a Jubilee Ministry housed at the Church of St. Peter and St. Mary near downtown Denver — strive to make guests feel welcomed and even a little pampered. That’s a rare experience for St. Clare’s guests, many of whom live on the streets.

“They’re very kind,” says Roger, a regular guest. “It’s very gentle here.”

“A lot of these folks essentially are like turtles. They carry their house on their back,” says Brown, a spiritual director and the senior warden at Church of the Holy Comforter in Broomfield. He is a longtime St. Clare’s volunteer. “They come with big duffle bags that have all their worldly possessions in them — or bicycles, an incredibly important vehicle to a lot of these folks.”

“It’s more than a convenience for them,” he says of the valet ministry that he and other greeters offer to St. Clare’s guests. “They can relax a little bit, knowing their stuff is safe and nobody is going to take anything. They can go have a nice meal, go to the clothing closet, and then they can come and find me and get their things.”

In many ways, St. Clare’s has become a model for ministry done right: meeting the physical and spiritual needs of both its guests and volunteers in unique and engaging ways, despite personnel changes and a clientele facing complex challenges.

“It’s not exactly what I thought it would be,” offered Brittany Grace, “But it’s a wonderful experience,” In March, Grace succeeded The Reverend Deacon Melanie Christopher as managing director of the ministry. Grace, a parishioner at St. John’s Cathedral, has a long history of working with nonprofits, especially those focused on homelessness. “There’s nothing bad about St. Clare’s,” Grace said. “I’ve worked in a lot of environments, with a lot of bumps in the road, and with St. Clare’s, it’s 99.9 percent good.”

St. Clare’s grew out of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in the late 1970s when The Reverend George Castano, the parish priest, suggested the church make sandwiches for a burgeoning population of homeless men and women who drifted over from Broadway, just a block away.

When St. Mary’s Episcopal Church merged with St. Peter’s in 1977, the ministry gained much-needed volunteers and financial resources that allowed it to grow. Today, St. Clare’s has evolved to include three primary services provided every Tuesday: a Holy Eucharist at 5:00 pm, supper at 6:00 pm, and a clothing closet that opens at 6:30 pm.
“They prepare a wonderful meal that everybody enjoys,” said Roger. “They’re very attentive to everybody’s needs and care.”

“I like the holidays,” said Donna Hood, a volunteer and former chair of St. Clare’s board of directors. “We have special meals. I think it’s important for them not to be alone on Christmas and New Year’s.”

St. Clare’s continues to partner with St. Peter and St. Mary’s, as well as Christ Church in Castle Rock, Christ the King in Arvada, Good Shepherd in Centennial, Holy Comforter in Broomfield, St. Joseph’s in Lakewood, St. Luke’s in Denver, St. Martin-in-the-Field in Aurora, St. Philip and St. James in Denver, and St. Timothy’s in Centennial. Each of these churches sends teams of volunteers to serve as cooks, servers, greeters, musicians, preachers, celebrants, readers, deacons, acolytes, cleaners, and to help organize and facilitate the clothing closet.

“They have wonderful people from all over the metro area,” Roger said, “not just Denver.”

Cooks begin working on the evening meal by mid-afternoon. The menu ranges from pork tenderloin with mashed potatoes, green beans and apple crisp to chicken casserole, salad, and ice cream or whatever the cooks were able to find on sale that week. Whatever the meal, it’s always home-cooked and nutrient-dense. Cooks typically prepare for 120 or so diners, with plenty left over for seconds for those who want more. Leftovers are often packaged and taken to the 32nd Avenue Jubilee Center, another Jubilee Ministry in northwest Denver.

Mary Halpin, 76, a parishioner at St. Peter & St. Mary, has been volunteering at St. Clare’s for several years. She’s found it life-giving, inspiring her to recruit her son and grandchildren to join the St. Clare’s community. For the longest time, Halpin just wandered among the tables during dinner, giving smiles and encouragement to all, becoming a surrogate grandmother for many. She then hit on an idea to expand her ministry. Although she loves spicy food, she understands why the St. Clare’s suppers must be mildly seasoned. But surely, she thought, many of the guests must be chili-heads like her. Why not give them the option of spicing up their food?

Using her walker as a tray, she loaded it with an assortment of hot sauces. It was an immediate hit. Now she goes from table to table, offering light AND heat for those who desire it.

When her hot-sauce bill began to grow unmanageable, St. Peter and St. Mary’s parishioners threw her a “Tongues of Fire” hot-sauce shower on Pentecost Sunday. She got dozens of bottles.

“This is an evolving community,” says The Reverend Deacon Pam Stewart, a deacon at St. Peter & St. Mary, who sees to the spiritual care of St. Clare’s guests. “Everyone has a story. What a gift and a blessing it can be to be to hear that story.”