Project Angel Heart moves to new facility

It’s a new year, and for Project Angel Heart it’s a new era. This month the meal delivery program for people facing life-threatening illness will be settling in to a new spacious, state of the art facility, anticipating a growing need for services.

The last deliveries from the organization’s long-time home on Garfield Street were Dec. 31, 2011, New Year’s Eve. Deliveries from the new location – 4950 Washington Street – start on Saturday, Jan. 12, 2012. No client deliveries will be missed during the complicated move.

“We are at capacity here and there is much more need in the community than Project Angel Heart can meet at (the old) facility,” said Erin Pulling, executive director.

The organization has 130 people on its waiting lists and it takes seven to nine weeks to get services.

The new facility was made possible by a successful capital campaign that raised $7.1 million to purchase an old meat packing plant and completely reconfigure it into a kitchen, administrative and distribution center capable of ultimately meeting the food needs of up to 5,000 clients a year. Presently, Project Angel Heart serves 1,900 clients in a year which translated into 420,000 meals delivered in 2011.

Pulling said she was not only grateful but inspired by the response from the community in raising that sum.

“We knew it was very ambitious for an organization our size, with a $1.9 million annual budget, to undertake a $7 million capital campaign,” she said.

Though some large grants came in, most of the campaign relied on individuals supporting Project Angel Heart’s mission.

“We don’t have many large donors. Most of our donors give from their paychecks,” said Pulling.
The Washington Street facility is 30,000 square feet – three times the size of the old site. The location also includes ample parking and plans call for a sizable garden plot where vegetables and herbs will be grown for the kitchen.

Some of the new space will be rented to other organizations, but eventually Project Angel Heart expects to be serving 3,500 clients each week.

Among current clients, 54 percent are women and 46 percent men with almost two thirds of all clients living at or below the federal poverty level. In 2005, the service area expanded to include Colorado Springs.

Though half of all clients are age 60 or above, Project Angel Heart differs from other meals programs by serving people of any age facing life-threatening illness and tailoring meals to suit special dietary needs and medical conditions. All Project Angel Heart services are free to clients.

Project Angel Heart began in 1991 delivering donated food to people living with HIV/AIDS, and the agency expanded its mission in 2001 to include those living with other life-threatening illness. The most common diseases reported by clients now are cancer, end-stage renal disease, HIV/AIDS and heart disease.

From its beginnings in the LGBT community, the organization has grown to serve the mainstream community and was recognized by the Colorado Springs-based El Pomar Foundation in 2002 as Colorado’s Most Outstanding Nonprofit Organization.

Pulling and other staffers are looking forward to putting the finishing touches on the capital campaign. “Then we can take a look at the future and growing programs,” she said.

On the Web at http://projectangelheart.org