Sixty years ago, a group of Broomfield women banded together to start what would become one of the county’s largest and most influential nonprofit organizations.

Broomfield FISH’s Food Operations Manager, Mike Lutz, has an endless number of stories to share about his work. In the past 10 years alone, FISH has helped more than 70,000 residents through food distribution and their self-serve marketplace, and Lutz remembers many of them fondly.

“I remember when we had just started our ‘adopt a shelf’ program, a woman came in with her two young boys. The kids noticed we didn’t have any jelly on the shelf… The mom was hesitant to adopt a product with little nutritional value, but she agreed,” Lutz said. “It must have been the first lady that came in after we got that jelly, she came in with a little girl and we put strawberry jelly in their basket for them,” he said.

Lutz remembers the little girl lighting up when she saw the jelly — strawberry was her favorite, and she couldn’t even remember the last time she had it.

Broomfield Fellowship In Serving Humanity, lovingly known throughout the community as FISH, has been working since 1963 to become one of Broomfield’s most prominent nonprofits. Throughout that time, FISH has evolved from a group of women helping neighbors in need out of their basements to a large organization that distributes more than one million pounds of food annually.

Over the decades, FISH has seen an increasing need in the community, and has always done its best to rise to the occasion.

“FISH has always taken care of our friends and neighbors, and of the community,” Lutz said. “Something that’s shifted over the years is the model of choice we’re able to give our families when they’re shopping.”

Since moving to their current location at 6 Garden Center, FISH has operated on a self-serve marketplace model, allowing families and residents in need to shop through their stock like a grocery store. This allows them to pick and choose what they need, instead of receiving baskets of food curated by FISH staff.

“There’s a lot more freedom, and a lot more dignity and respect in being able to choose,” Lutz said.

Added Lutz, “I remember one lady who came in, and it was her first time shopping with us, and she was dealing with the stigma of needing help. I think she expected to just get a box of food and not have a choice, so when she saw the marketplace and was able to shop for herself, she got very emotional.”

Lutz remembers her being overcome with emotion, holding a box of strawberries.

“She said to me ‘you have no idea how much this makes my day, the stress I had coming in here has gone away,’” he said.

Even when FISH can’t meet all the needs of a community member, it finds a way to help.

“We had a client come in and she was doing home health care and the person she was taking care of had died,” said Karen Steele, a longtime FISH employee. “And so the family told her she needed to leave, and she had nowhere to go and no resources.”

The client had walked from the Broadlands neighborhood to FISH in the nearly 100-degree weather, almost five miles of travel entirely on foot.

“I could tell she was hurting, so I gave her water and food and let her eat. And then she told me her story,” Steele said. “She needed housing assistance, but our options were very limited, so I gave her a bus pass and recommended a shelter in Denver.”

Steele remembers feeling helpless; she felt she had sent the client away without helping, only managing to put a bandage on her situation. But when the client returned a year later, she told a different story.

“She came back a year later and told me she was completely self-sufficient. She had a job and was living on her own, and she came to thank me,” Steele said. “This is a lady that had a college degree, she’s very well educated and very smart. And that just reminds me that it could be any one of us — we could fall on hard times and just need that helping hand.”

From the outside or from a place of privilege, Broomfield often appears as entirely wealthy, with a median income higher than the national average and a reputation for high costs of living.

But for FISH, neighbors and community members in need have always been there, and it’s dedicated to continuing to serve them for years to come.

“You wouldn’t think Broomfield would have a problem with food or homelessness or what we help with, but our client base just keeps growing,” Steele said. “I’m just so glad that we have FISH in our community that can help people and give them hope, hope that things are going to be better for them.”