Helping Hearts and Hands is a small, respected, grass roots charity serving Jefferson and Denver counties. In its 25-year history, Helping Hearts and Hands has distributed over $2 million in aid to families and individuals - well over 90% of all funds it has raised. It is not affiliated in any manner with "Helping Hands for the Homeless"- whose director was recently indicted by a state grand jury.

Helping Hearts and Hands is celebrating its 25 th Anniversary this year. Started as "Adopt-A-Family" in 1981, Helping Hearts and Hands provides one-time emergency financial or in-kind assistance to families or individuals who have a special need that they cannot meet through their own resources which threatens the self-sufficiency of the household.

Helping Hearts and Hands publicizes the needs of its clients in local papers and asks the public to respond. 100% of individual donations go directly to help families and individuals. Other fundraising activities include special events, direct mail requests, grant proposals as well as contributions from businesses, civic organizations and faith communities. Helping Hearts and Hands never solicits donations by phone or door-to-door. For 25 years, the program has been run entirely by dedicated volunteers who work without compensation. Due to an increase in case load, a part-time assistant (funded through a three-year grant) was hired in April of this year to support the volunteers who still manage the program.

Helping Hearts and Hands was conceived when a member of a local Chamber of Commerce came to Betty Proctor (at the time a manager for Jefferson County Human Services) and told her about a program in the East that helped those who "fall through the cracks" of the system. This program placed articles in the newspaper profiling a family or individual in need and asked for donations. Betty knew that so often families just need a little one-time assistance to stay self-sufficient and was frustrated by government rules and regulations that precluded folks from this kind of help. She researched the program and started Adopt -A-Family of Jefferson County.

For many years Adopt-A-Family was a holiday program operating from October through December serving only Jefferson County families. In 1998, at the request of human service agencies in the City and County of Denver, services were expanded to include Denver. The name of the organization was changed to Helping Hearts and Hands and it became an all-year-long program.

In July of 2004, Helping Hearts and Hands came under the fiscal sponsorship of Family Tree, who manages human resource, auditing and accounting services for the organization.

For more information on Helping Hearts and Hands, please contact Betty Proctor, Voluntary Program Director at 303-936-90433.