Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA) was founded in Boulder County nearly a century ago. As it approaches that milestone anniversary, it continues to serve a critical need in our area, while adapting to coordinate care with strategic partnerships around the county.
Members of The Community Foundation staff, trustees and partners were able to take a tour of EFAA’s North Boulder headquarters this week. We learned about their worthy mission of breaking the cycle of poverty for families who live here.
Executive Director Julie Van Domelen said EFAA was founded in 1918. She was named to the helm of EFAA in 2014.
“It was founded to serve the mining community, and the boom-and-bust cycle that industry had,” she said.
Industries and demographics change, but today EFAA remains close to its roots. The “boom-and-bust” cycles of Boulder County’s mining past have been replaced by pockets of persistent poverty, and families in crisis who — like the miners’ families before them — benefit immeasurably from immediate response. Services include temporary shelter that staves off homelessness, assistance with energy bills or rent, and meeting the basic needs of food and even furniture.
In 2014, EFAA provided short-term and transitional housing to 145 local families in Boulder, Lafayette, Longmont and Louisville. It distributed hundreds of thousands of pounds of food. Financial assistance for bills totaled more than $813,000 — money spent primarily to keep families in their homes and out of dire crises. EFAA has a suite of services, and many families with children can use them all. But sometimes just one-month’s worth of rent will help a family with a medical emergency pay that one bill, and stay in their home.
At EFAA’s bright headquarters, families mingle with caseworkers and an impressive number of busy volunteers. Outside its walls is what may well be its biggest asset: Strategic partnerships.
Van Domelen described robust relationships, particularly with Community Food Share, Sister Carmen and OUR Center. It’s the kind of collaboration and leverage that enables agencies to serve the most people, shelter and feed families and keep many other families in their homes.
