By Shelley Widhalm
The Surveyor

Be The Gift doesn’t want single mothers and widows in northern Colorado to have a home repair go unattended when there are dozens of volunteers willing to do the work.

“They have to allocate and put more of their resources into their family. Sometimes that leaves their home needing love and care and updating,” said Katie Johnson, development and event director for Be the Gift, a faith-based nonprofit headquartered in Loveland. “We can come in and fill that gap for them.”

Be the Gift provides home repairs and handyman services to female homeowners at no cost, such as basic plumbing and electrical work, repairs to floors and decks, painting, and yardwork. Project managers and a team of volunteers do the work, and the nonprofit covers the cost of materials and supplies as a gift to the homeowners.

“We focus on health, safety and functionality to keep their homes functioning and safe for their kids,” Johnson said. “They are not having to pay for somebody to come and do the work. It also makes a difference because we see a lot of moms that don’t know anybody to help them.”

Johnson’s parents, the late Chris and Marilyn, now the executive director, founded Be the Gift in 2006 when their neighbor, a single mother, needed repair work on her windows and elsewhere in her home. Chris found the volunteers to do the work, already wanting to get something like this started.

“It sparked an idea … there are a lot of single mothers and widows that actually need this service, and they realized this is something (they) can help them with,” Johnson said.
During its first year, Be the Gift completed approximately 10 home repairs, increasing to an average of 70 a year, a number that keeps growing. Since it began, the nonprofit helped 890 single moms and 1,470 children, providing $885,000 worth of labor.

“We are super community-minded,” Johnson said. “We love to work with other people in the community, other businesses, other churches, other nonprofits.”

Be the Gift has three components, that of doing repair work, utilizing volunteers and educating homeowners about regular home maintenance.

The staff of five works with a couple hundred volunteers each year, who sign up as individuals or as part of a larger group, such as a business, organization or church. The volunteers, who primarily come from Northern Colorado and occasionally Denver, work on a project almost every weekend and sometimes during the week. An average of eight to nine volunteers come out each time, though with business serve days, there may be as many as 20 volunteers. Since the nonprofit began, 2,125 volunteers have helped out.

Be the Gift gives to single mothers and widows in other ways, including scholarships and annual events. The nonprofit issues four to five scholarships a year to single moms and widows, who are not required to be homeowners, with the amounts varying depending on what’s raised that year. So far, the nonprofit has given out 40 scholarships since it started the program in 2013.

Each year, Be the Gift hosts a Christmas luncheon, providing the homeowners it helped over the past year with a meal and gifts for them and their families. During Mother’s Day, the nonprofit presents a special activity, such as delivering flowers or serving a luncheon for the homeowners.

“We like to say we celebrate Mother’s Day all year long because we help these mothers all year long,” Johnson said.

Be the Gift sends out Mother’s Day postcards to its mailing list to raise awareness about what it does and to share a homeowner story. Another way the nonprofit raises awareness is during its annual Cajun Boil fundraiser, which this year will be July 19 at Brookside Gardens.

As the nonprofit grows, it’s needed more space, so in March 2023, it purchased a building in south Loveland with room for office and conference space, a lobby and a warehouse. At its two previous rentals, the warehouse was in a separate location—it’s used for storing tools, supplies and four trailers called Workshops on Wheels.

The new building, which cost $320,000, needed new furniture and renovation work, including new flooring, wall repairs, painting, a kitchen installation and updating of the restrooms. Be the Gift moved into the building in May 2023.

“This way we are able to have everything housed in one spot,” Johnson said. “It’s more efficient for our program to be able to get things done together.”