Hands of The Carpenter

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Impact Statement

Last year, Hands of the Carpenter was able to provide 131 clients with 245 car repairs. The average cost of each repair was $187.00, which represents an average savings of nearly 30% over market costs.

On average, we provided automobile maintenance for 25 clients at each of the quarterly car care clinics that were held.

Our goals moving forward into the next “season” of our organization are to change/enhance our programs so that they provide more of a long-lasting benefit to our clients while including local community businesses and national businesses in the process. We intend to implement the following during the next 12 to 24 months:

• Attract and involve local and national automotive partners to provide parts and services that our clients need.
• Take our car care clinics to other nonprofit partner organizations providing different services for single parents and widows.
• Operate an automotive facility in an “at cost” environment to meet the growing need.
• Expand our board of directors to include members with a passion for serving our clients and the knowledge/expertise we need to draw from in order to run an automotive facility.
• Decrease the percentage of overall funding received from foundations through individual and corporate donor development.

Needs Statement

New and reconditioned automotive parts
Motor oil for car care clinics
Skilled volunteer mechanics
Automotive repair shop
Board Members theat share our passion in one or more of the following areas:
*Biblical- those who care for single parents and widows as a means for living out biblical convictions
*Relational- those who personally understand the importance of caring for single parents and widows
*Passsion- those who have a passion for automobiles and are skilled at repair and/or maintenance

Background Statement

Hands of The Carpenter was founded in 2003 by our current president and executive director Dan Georgopulos and his wife Brenda. Dan was laid off from the technology industry and shortly after, began leading the single parent ministry at his church. After hearing stories of abuse, homelessness, death of a spouse – the types of events that led these [mostly women] to being on their own, Dan and Brenda decided to do whatever they could to make a difference in the lives of these individuals.

Initially, the focus was providing home repair in order to allow these individuals to live in a safe environment with their children and reside independently. Our time spent with these single parents and widows quickly revealed that our original plan to provide automobile repair in the future needed to happen sooner rather than later. What we learned was that the majority of single parents and widows did not own their own home but rented instead, therefore repairs were covered by the landlord. Most single parents and widows did however, own an automobile. The following problems were identified:

• Automobile repair, a commodity essential to an individual’s ability to maintain a job and provide for their family, often puts excessive financial and emotional strain on single parent families and widows.
• In the metropolitan Denver area alone, there are more than 86,000 single parent households and over 84,000 widows. Many live below the federal poverty level.
• These single parent families and widows own automobiles that are 10-15 years old and because of limited financial means, the vehicles cannot be maintained. Therefore they are in need of repairs that are not being made, and the safety and longevity of the vehicles are compromised
• Single women are often taken advantage of relating to the diagnosis and repairs made or not made on their automobiles.
• These conditions often caused single mothers to lose their jobs, often forcing them to depend on government assistance.


In consultation with the Board, volunteers, community businesses and churches, our car repair program was formed to provide quality, timely repairs by certified mechanics. Shortly thereafter, we started our quarterly Car Care Clinics which provide maintenance for automobiles preventing costly repairs.

Significant progress has been made in both the numbers of repairs we are able to make each year and the efficiency in which we are able to make those repairs.

Besides Hands of The Carpenter, there are no known organizations in Metropolitan Denver providing organized, intentional automobile services for this group of individuals in need. Hands is unique in that it specifically addresses immediate and substantial service needs for automobiles.

Executive Director Statement

It is my pleasure to share a bit of Hands of The Carpenter with you.

Hands of The Carpenter is a caring community of individuals, businesses and foundations passionate about helping single parents and widows in need.

Practical and immediate assistances is sometimes hard to come by, yet is incredibly important to a single mother or elderly widow. There are often long lines, waiting lists, or simply no help available for these pressing needs. When it comes to automobile repair – that need, and that group, are often taken advantage of by someone who is looking for an opportunity to take, rather than an opportunity to help. That is where Hands of The Carpenter comes in.

Hands is a trusted, reliable organization which provides these women with a way to keep forward momentum going when no one else is around to help. Hands currently serves both Jefferson County and Denver County – offering help on a “pay-what-you-can” basis. We are moving towards operating our own automobile repair shop in a social enterprise environment. This will help both the sustainability of the work we do and the number of clients we have the pleasure to serve.

I would like to personally invite you into the joy of serving this group and join “Hands”. Please let me know how I can support your desires to make a difference in the life of these women.

Board Chair/President Statement

Hands of The Carpenter has experienced many successes, mainly in positively affecting the lives of those we serve. We have had the privilege to serve over one hundred single parents and widows in 2009. Assisting single parents in keeping their jobs, through good, reliable transportation, is very rewarding and critical in their families lives. Knowing the impact we are having on them and their families is vital, and keeps our organization excited! Additional success has come from the increase in our Board size, from 3 to 8. We look forward to the impact these additional people bring to the organization.

Our challenges remain primarily in the funding arena. Like many, we struggle raising the necessary funds in these challenging times we live in.

To address this challenge we have done several things. First, we added more to our Board to broaden our reach in the community at large. Second, we have focused our efforts on fundraising events and grant writing. We have two additional personnel, one who focuses on events and the other on grant writing. This will bring more consistency to our fundraising processes and we should see the benefits and results from these efforts soon. Last November we began an annual banquet which was a huge success and we hope for the same this year.

We are very excited about the future of Hands of The Carpenter and encourage partners to join us in serving this vital part of our community, single parents and widows, which makes up 25% of our national community of families and upwards of 90% of inner city families.

· In the metropolitan Denver area alone, there are more than 86,000 single parent households and over 84,000 widows. Many live below the federal poverty level.

· These single parent families and widows own automobiles that are 10-15 years old and because of limited financial means, the vehicles cannot be maintained. Therefore they are in need of repairs that are not being made, and the safety and longevity of the vehicles are compromised.


Thank you for your time!

Steve Durgin

Board Chair

"I tell people that your ministry fixes cars, but mostly you fix hearts..."
-Widow, Lakewood, CO

"What can I say except, may God richly bless you. You have touched my children and my life in such a way. Thank you so much for, first of all, opening up your heart to my family and finding out awhat our needs were. Secondly for acknowlegeing those needs and acting upon them."
-Single mom, Littleton, CO

"Thank you so much for helping to pay for my brakes! It was such an answer to my prayers. Please understand there's not a lot of programs like yours that truly help and make an everlasting effect on someone!"
-Single mom, Denver, CO