6 westword.com WESTWORD MARCH 19-25, 2026 | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Feeding a Need CHRIST’S BODY MINISTRIES, WHICH SERVES HUNDREDS OF FREE BREAKFASTS EVERY WEEK, IS $100,000 IN THE RED. BY BENNITO L. KELT Y Christ’s Body Ministries is known among Denver’s homeless individuals for the quality of its cafeteria, but the registered nonprofi t thinks of itself as more of a church, according to Steve Smith, the organization’s fi nance director. “We’re kind of a ‘Church of the Home- less,’” Smith says. “Inasmuch as there is no offi cial ‘Church of the Homeless,’ that’s how we see ourselves. We’re a church fi rst, and what we do is built around that.” Every weekday morning from 7 to 9 a.m. at 850 Lincoln Street, Christ’s Body Minis- tries hosts a food kitchen and a daily com- munion, the Christian practice of worship by consuming bread and wine as a symbol of Jesus Christ’s body. Smith not only leads the church’s fi nances but the communion as well, constantly reminding those in attendance the ritual honors the idea of sacrifi ce and giving up what you have for others. For nearly forty years, Christ’s Body Ministries has served a rotating menu of hot breakfasts in Capitol Hill. They in- clude steak and eggs on Monday, French toast on Tuesday and huevos ran- cheros on Wednesday. According to Christ’s Body Ministries, it serves more than 80,000 meals a year. About 150 people eat at Christ’s Body Ministries every morning, “and for many, that’s their only meal of the day,” Smith says. The faith-based nonprofi t prides itself on offering an array of services for homeless residents. People can sign up for a fi fteen- minute shower or queue up for a private restroom, which isn’t always easy to fi nd around Denver. Christ’s Body Ministries gives away more than 16,000 pounds of clothes to homeless residents a year as well, according to Smith. “We have people who come in here before heading to a job interview,” he says. “They can shower, and we’ll fi nd the right clothes for them. We’ve had someone tell us he’s coming in for a meal twenty minutes before a job interview. He took a shower, we gave him the clothes, and he came back with a job.” But many of these services are now at risk, even after a community-driven donation drive. According to Jim Copeland, the ex- ecutive director of Christ’s Body Ministries, the organization is facing a severe fi nancial shortfall and needs about $100,000 in order to continue operations. A friend of a Christ’s Body Ministries worker took to Reddit last week, asking for small donations to lift the nonprofi t out of a “massive fi nancial crunch.” The post gener- ated an empathetic response while raising around $4,000. Although that still leaves a major monetary gap, Christ’s Body Minis- tries staffers were uplifted by the support. The response was “surprising,” Copeland says. “We didn’t know anybody had posted anything until we saw the donations.” Smith didn’t know about the Reddit post until donations started rolling in. “Usually, I’ll come in and see that we only had four or fi ve credit cards listed,” Smith says of the standard daily donations. “I came in, and I was seeing fi fty credit cards. I was thinking, ‘What’s going on?’” The nonprofi t goes through “ups and downs,” he adds, and is “usually on the edge” of overspending its annual budget of just under $1 million. However, an extended period of tough times has made it hard for the nonprofi t to keep up with operational costs, paying vendors and keeping up its Cap Hill building, which is nearly sixty years old. “Maintenance is what you would expect in a building as old and big as this,” Smith says. “We have residents. We’ve got to keep this place functioning and safe. We have a certifi ed, commercial kitchen that we have to keep running and sanitary.” Christ’s Body Ministries runs two tran- sitional housing programs out of the build- ing, which has about a dozen rooms. The programs help both homeless residents and former convicts exiting the Colorado Depart- ment of Corrections, the state penal system. The organization is also known for its mobile services, according to Smith. On weekends, Christ’s Body Ministries equips a van with clothes, food and hot water for show- ers, and travels to busy homeless shelters like the Salvation Army Crossroads Center in Five Points, the Denver Rescue Mission’s 48th Avenue Center in north- east Park Hill, and the Denver Dream Center in the Ballpark District. Workers have no- ticed a greater need in the homeless commu- nity since 2020, says Tiffany Beckford, chief of staff at Christ’s Body Ministries, adding that needs have increased as donations have declined. “Around COVID, we saw the need really in- crease, but the support increased right with it. We saw a lot of donations come in. People at that time were more willing to give away food, clothes, whatever they could,” Beckford explains. “Later, we saw the need was still high, but people weren’t supporting us the way they had. People get tired of donating.” The City of Denver has invested heavily in solving homelessness under Mayor Mike Johnston, who claims to be halfway toward his goal of solving the issue in the city. Ac- cording to the annual Point in Time count, a federal estimate of local homeless popula- tions, Denver has seen an increase in home- lessness during Johnston’s almost three years in offi ce. In 2023, more than 5,800 people were homeless, compared to 7,300 people in 2025, according to PIT counts. However, the number of people sleeping in the streets has decreased during that time, from more than 1,400 people to fewer than 800. “These people deserve dignifi ed care,” Copeland says, “and that means dignifi ed meals, not just what we have or what’s left over or something out of a can.” Chick-fi l-A, Olive Garden and Eddie V’s Prime Seafood donate ingredients and food for meals at Christ’s Body Ministries, in- cluding chicken, biscuits and steak, and the nonprofi t keeps a chef on staff to cook the meals, Copeland says. “We rely on volunteers a lot,” Copeland notes. “But we have a chef to make sure that the meals people are eating are the same quality, if not better than what you or I eat every day.” As a result, Smith notes, Christ’s Body Ministries has a positive reputation among homeless individuals, who often remember their daily meal rotation by memory “and recite it back to us on the street.” Although the $4,000 raised on March 13 is a drop in the bucket for what the organization needs, Smith says it creates breathing room. “It’s enough to pay the bills and get us to the end of the month. It’ll get us through April,” he coincludes. “I was messaging people we couldn’t pay back, saying, ‘We have the money! We can pay this!’” Email the author at [email protected]. NEWS KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS Steve Smith, the fi nancial director of Christ’s Body Ministries, tells homeless residents about the last supper and communion. Christ’s Body Ministries serves dozens of homeless residents every morning in its Cap Hill cafeteria. COURTESY OF CHRIST’S BODY MINISTRIES BENNITO L. KELT Y
