The Hands and Feet ministry of the Ecumenical Church of Pueblo West (ECOPW) was created to meet an increasing need in Pueblo West, Colorado (and now expanded to anyone in Pueblo County and beyond) where individuals and families are having a difficult time either accessing or purchasing healthy, nutritious food. Two Census tracts in Pueblo West near ECOPW are the poorest in Pueblo County and some of the poorest in all of southern Colorado. To meet this need, ECOPW expanded its existing food pantry, serving approximately 10 families a month, to the Hands and Feet Ministry.

Hands and Feet provides resources to anyone regardless of age, gender identification, race, geography, income, or faith tradition (if any). The only requirements to participate are to provide the participant's zip code, address, and number of family members; this data is not shared outside of the Hands and Feet program and is only used for tracking purposes. Hands and Feet has a four-pronged approach to bettering the lives of participants: a twice-a-week pantry (with fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy products, and meat) where families are allowed to come once a month for a full "shopping cart" of goods, a once-a-month "Friday Free Farmers Market" where a more limited selection of goods is available to anyone who attends until items run out, a senior food commodities distribution program, and seasonally applicable programs (e.g., school supplies, flu shots, health care enrollment, etc.).

The food pantry program is a partnership of ECOPW congregants, a local convenience store chain, and a local food bank. The same food bank is the major partner with the "Friday Free Farmers Market," while Pueblo County is the main partner in the senior food commodities program. A variety of groups have partnered in the seasonally appropriate programs, including local mental health agencies, pharmacies, retailers, and hospitals.

Expected Outcomes

• Increase in individuals with limited resource accessing healthy food resources
• The need anticipated will be exponentially higher and the speed at which word will spread will be faster than planned; there will be a need to be ready to ramp up resource

Evidence

Potential bright spot

Key Principles

Hands and Feet has a simple operating principle: to help those who need help in service of faith, while being open to all.

Expansion of services beyond ECOPW's walls to better serve the underserved in the community was another guiding principle of creating Hands and Feet-Pueblo West is generally isolated from most county and social services with no public transportation available to those needing to access those services. Hands and Feet was a way to bring some of those services together under a "neutral tent" in a much more accessible location.

Hands and Feet has been successful because of three main points of emphasis: partnership in the congregation and the community, ability to test and scale up services at a reasonable pace, and an ability to track services provided. The dual roles of partnership (coming from a place of love and caring) with true improvement science principles have made Hands and Feet's work succeed.

Failing Forward Moments

One fail forward set of moments is learning what "additional" services to provide those receiving goods from the food program of Hands and Feet. Those helping with the program "had a good idea" of what participants needed and brought in outside groups to participate in Hands and Feet events, primarily attached to the Friday Free Farmers market. Some events went well (Affordable Care Act insurance sign ups, for example) some were failures (vet services for pets-some services for a fee). What program leaders learned (and continue to learn) is asking participants what they need, what matters to them, and working to bring those services out to Hands and Feet events in a manner best suited to fit participants' self-identified ability to participate.

Another fail forward moment still to be learned is measuring outcomes. While the program knows the number of participants, locations where they reside, and amount of food distributed, there is not yet a way for the program to measure outcomes. Hands and Feet is adopting the Adult Well-being survey to help start measuring some of those outcomes.

Key Lessons Learned

• Over-anticipate needs in your community: the sheer number of participants will exceed initial expectations. On a number of early occasions, there were more people than food/goods/services available. Get more than you think you need.
• Grateful people: people are truly grateful to receive the products of the Hands and Feet ministry, and don't see it as merely a "program," but a way to connect. Some who have received from the program now volunteer their time to the program
• Volunteers' "joy in work": the volunteers who work the program (there is only one paid position doing the work who has other main responsibilities at the church) have expressed how fulfilling being a part of the Hands and Feet ministry has made them feel. It truly becomes a labor of love for these volunteers.