BOULDER -- For Jayleen Hammond, JeffCo Food Share, is a godsend. She comes once a month.

"It helps me out tremendously," Hammond said. "There are seven of us -- three kids and two grandbabies. Right now, my husband is the only one working. He's paid $10 per hour. Rent is $700. Winter utilities are $300 to $350 per month."

So Hammond has turned to JeffCo Food Share to help stretch their budget.

"They do a wonderful job," she said of the volunteers. "They're friendly."

She, Deborah Dixon and Lacy Brown sat at a table in the basement of Boulder First Baptist Church last Thursday, while volunteers put together food boxes for them.

Dixon said she is astounded at the help she's received, since arriving in Boulder a month ago.

"It doesn't take an act of Congress to be helpful," she said. When she sought help in Georgia, where she'd lived until recently, they'd ask everything but her shoe size, she joked. Here they just ask her name and her address. She and her husband just moved to the Boulder area. He's started work and is waiting for his first paycheck.

Brown and her husband are receiving Social Security money.

"We're raising our 7-year-old granddaughter," Brown said. "That seems to be the trend." Sometimes there just isn't enough money.

For the past 21 years,

JeffCo Food Share has been there to help folks like Brown, Dixon and Hammond.

Started by John Cook, the Boulder First Baptist Church pastor at the time, the food pantry still resides in the church basement. The church provides free space and utilities.

"It's a huge gift," said Cathy DuBois, the group's treasurer.

The food pantry relies on personal donations and local food drives at the high school and by the rural mail carriers.

"We don't have a budget," said DuBois. "We've been blessed. We haven't run out of food. We always thought the Lord would provide."

So far, there's been groceries on the pantry shelves and in its freezers. Recently a local ranch family donated a whole cow. A loyal volunteer from Wickes regularly bakes banana bread and brings in two to three boxes of loaves. She also makes a couple flats of jelly.

So far, generosity is keeping pace with need.

Need was higher in 2007, with 605 people served, compared to 500, the year before, DuBois said.

But she sees no particular trends in the data, she said. For instance, in 2004, they served 857 people, and she's not sure what caused that spike in the data.

The food pantry is open the second and fourth Thursday afternoons of the month. Clients can come once a month and receive four to five days worth of food for each member of their household.

Through Aug. 9, 378 people have been served so far this year, 81 percent of them families.

Although no one is required to state what brings them to the pantry, the most frequent hardships mentioned are -- out of food, medical problems, lack of money and unemployment.

"I know some people don't come because they're embarrassed," said DuBois, "but I would hope if they have children in need that they will come."

Reporter Marga Lincoln: marga.lincoln@helenair.com or 447-4074