St. Raphael’s is on Leta Drive too. She wound up there purely by mistake.

But what a blessed mistake it was for Shumaker, who lives with her son, his wife and four children, and who struggles to get by on $91 a month in food stamps.

“This has been a godsend,” says Shumaker, 63, who has been stopping by the church weekly for five years now. “My family could so easily be homeless. But thanks to the help I get from the church, we’re able to stretch things out. I’d be sunk without this place.”

Shumaker is among the nearly 1,000 Colorado Springs families who received assistance from St. Raphael’s Food Pantry ministry last year.

The pantry, which operates out of the church’s fellowship hall every Friday morning, in June was officially recognized as a Jubilee Ministry of the Episcopal Church. It becomes the 23rd ministry to receive such recognition in Colorado, and the first in the Colorado Springs area.

While the food pantry has been in operation for several years, the church recently reorganized it to draw on greater volunteer support from parishioners, and the parish has embraced it as a vital means through which St. Raphael’s can respond to the needs of the community.

In 2008, the church spent nearly $6,000 on the food pantry and racked up more than 1,500 volunteer hours staffing it. Koskela expects a quadrupling of resources and volunteer hours for 2009.

“This is a way for our folks to be involved in a hands-on ministry,” says the Rev. David Koskela, rector at St. Raphael’s. “It’s another way of witnessing that the life of a parish is lived in more than these four walls. It extends into the community.”

“This is very important to the congregation,” says Irene Kornelly, the senior warden, and one of the regular volunteers at the pantry. “We see that by the number of parishioners who are now volunteering here. We see that by the increase in contributions to the pantry. We’re not a wealthy community. We’re a blue-collar community. But even if someone can’t give a lot of money, they can bring in some canned food or boxes of cereal. And a lot of them do, even if they don’t have much themselves.”

On any given Friday, volunteers prepare boxes of food for an average of 25 families. Into each box goes some fresh meat and produce, supplemented with canned goods, peanut butter, crackers, cereal, crackers, bread and whatever else the food pantry has on had that week.

“We want to give them at least two good meals with fresh vegetables and fruit,” says Karla Fisk, assistant director of the pantry. “They can fill in with other things we put in the boxes.”

Part of the food comes from the local Care and Share, which supplies goods to pantries throughout the city at a reduced cost. The congregation buys or donates the rest, including requests from clients who may have special needs.

“I never look at what’s in the box until I get home, so it’s always a surprise,” says Shumaker. “But they always put a few sweets in there for my grandchildren.”

Most of the clients are referred to St. Raphael’s by the Walt Fortman Center, a community center that serves low-income families. Others live in the neighborhood or have heard through the grapevine about the pantry. All are welcomed, and the church puts no limits on the number of visits a family can make to the pantry. They’re also invited to come back on Sunday and worship there, though that’s certainly not a requirement for receiving food.

“This encourages folks not to be so intimidated by the ‘e-word’: evangelism,” says Koskela. “There are a lot of ways to witness to Christ’s love, ways that are not offensive to people. And it’s inviting folks to talk to strangers.”

Koskela hopes that the resurgence of commitment to the food pantry will lead to renewed commitment in others areas as well.

“We make a lot of references around here to our baptismal covenant,” he says. “The food pantry makes a link to that, how we live into it. But it also stimulates in some folks a sense of creativity: ‘We’re doing the food pantry. What else can we do?’”