Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.   You know it’s summer when the Nederland Community Presbyterian Church puts on a lunch time spread every Thursday. Tables filled with chili and sandwiches, fruit, cookies, drinks and even a bowl of socks are set up in the garden next to the frothing, rushing water of North Boulder Creek.

It is a free, everyone welcome buffet, meant to not only fill people’s stomachs, but also to share knowledge and advice about how to camp safely in our mountains.

NCPC pastor Hansen Wendlandt initiated the outreach program four years ago and it has thrived by bringing in grateful campers and travelers who love being able to connect in a positive way with the community.

Last Thursday, Wendlandt and a handful of volunteers greeted the summer’s first visitors, sitting at the picnic tables in the shade of the newly leafed aspen trees. Last year, Socks and Sandwiches hosted 170 friends who ate with the volunteers throughout the summer.

“We shared a lot of information,” says Wendlandt, “Like where to camp, how to get help, where to find the fire department and police department and the parks and recreation for information.”

Three team leaders share the event over a ten-week period: Kathy Meyer, Diana Nelson and Henry Schliff.

“Our goal is to offer a meal and a place of peace; to try and understand what it’s like to live in the woods. There are so many misconceptions out there,” says Wendlandt. “Issues of drug abuse and trash often get blamed on the homeless who are less likely to use hard drugs than the others who come and go and leave their needles in their wake.”

Reaching out to those who need and want help with kindness and dignity is the goal of the program.

This summer, Boulder County and the Nederland Interagency Council on Homeless Encampments is launching the Summer Homeless Advocate for Residential encampments program, a seasonal outreach pilot targeting adults experiencing homelessness and who choose to camp near Nederland. This SHARE program will teach safe camping practices and provide resources through the Homeless Solutions for Boulder County program.

SHARE will support a part-time outreach worker dedicated to building relationships with homeless people living in or near Nederland. The SHARE position will coincide with the campers arriving for the summer.

Claudia Schauffler, owner of The Shop in the Tebo Shopping Center, has been hired as the outreach worker. Claudia has worked for nine years managing the People’s Clinic in Boulder and has been involved in health care all of her life. She was also a pediatric respiratory therapist in Atlanta and loved the position.

Claudia moved to Colorado 13 years ago to be near her sister, who works at NCAR. She did odd jobs and then worked with the Mountain Family Clinic, before they closed, as the operations manager.

Her job with the People’s Clinic involved working with homeless and transient people.

When she saw that a position was open in the Nederland area, she knew it was something she should be doing. Now she has a job and owns a shop in Nederland which is a perfect combination.

She will teach clients safe campfire management, how to deal with waste, wildlife, water purification and weather. She will also connect people in need of services.

Homeless Solutions was launched last October in a collaboration between Boulder County, the cities of Boulder and Longmont and area service providers. The primary goal is to provide responsive services to support quick, stable housing for adults experiencing homelessness.

In the first six months of system implementation, from October 2017 to March 2018, 184 adults exited these services to successful outcomes countywide. These include 72 clients who exited to their own housing, 84 clients who have reunified with support systems in and outside of Boulder County, and 28 clients who have enrolled in other programs such as Ready to Work, the Inn Between, and residential substance use treatment.

Claudia says that along with offering support to the homeless, she will also be gathering data to determine if the program should be continued and what kind of effect it has had on the program’s goals.

She will be on hand as needed and may be contacted. Questions about the SHARE program can be directed to Hansen Wendlandt, Pastor of the Nederland Community Presbyterian Church, 210 N. Jefferson Street, at ncpcpastor@gmail.com, or by phone at 303-258-3579. Or if you have questions about HSBC, please contact Homeless-Solutions@bouldercounty.org.

Last Thursday, disabled veteran Eric Meyer said, “Some people just need a pat on the back sometimes. I have come back here for the past two years, was a GS 13 with the Department of Defense.” He said he is here to stay in “the land of broken toys,” where everyone says hi and will help you change a tire. He says he became disabled when he was 48 and has become a member of the Nederland community because of “carrot top,” Wendlandt whom he says is a good guy. “But I’ve never met a bad person up here.”

Peak to Peak Counseling intern Gina Ray also mingled with the visitors on Thursday. She is a senior with Walden University, a Minneapolis on-line program studying clinical mental health counseling. Gina was a stay-at-home mom for 25 years and decided she wanted to help people find meaning out of adversity, to listen to them and help them discover their strengths.

Myriad personalities mingle on a typical Thursday lunch at the Presbyterian Church and everyone who attends leaves feeling a little better about him or herself as well as about each other.