Rich Loeber, president of the Ecumenical Council of Saranac Lake, poses in front of Samaritan House in Saranac Lake in 2018. (Enterprise file photo — Jesse Adcock)

The Church these days is often considered to be anachronistic and increasingly irrelevant; something no longer needed in these modernistic, post-theistic days. But, here in Saranac Lake, there is a Christian organization that is working hard for the community.

The Ecumenical Council of Saranac Lake is a tax exempt organization made up of most of the churches in Saranac Lake working together to help those in need within the Saranac Lake School District geographical area. By working together, the council can take on large projects that an individual church might not be able to handle and accomplish the work that Jesus left to us.

Many of you may be aware of Samaritan House, the transitional housing facility for those facing homelessness. But the council is much more than just one ministry.

Samaritan House was an idea brought to the Ecumenical Council more than 15 years ago by ministers and priests in member churches who were regularly asked for someplace to stay. Increasingly, local hotels and motels were refusing to help even when a church was willing to pay the cost of a room. The council decided that what was needed was a local shelter of some sort. The idea was researched over the course of the next several years. Other shelters in the area were visited and the issue of rural homelessness was studied in detail. Multiple potential locations were reviewed until the right location, now known as Samaritan House, was found. We also realized that we did not have the expertise to handle the day to day management of the facility and we found a partner, Lakeside House, with just the right skill set for what was needed. We opened our doors on Feb. 1, 2017 with our eight-bed facility. Since then more than 430 souls have passed through our program, maintaining an 85% graduation rate to rejoin society by working and living independently. And, through the generosity of the previous owners, we now own the building outright and we are debt free.

But the council is much more that just Samaritan House.

Another ministry that you may have heard of is Grace Pantry. This is not a food pantry, but a pantry where those in need can get items that do not qualify for SNAP benefits (food stamps). Once a week on Wednesday afternoons, the pantry is open to the public at the Baldwin House and distributes items like toilet paper, soap, diapers, paper towels, laundry detergent, personal hygiene items and more. In an average week, the pantry serves as many as 40 families (250 individuals) with its services.

In 2014, as a response to rising heating costs, the Kiwanis Club in Saranac Lake organized a fundraising event called Heat-A-Palooza at the town hall. They raised more than $5,000 but did not want to administer the funds. They approached the council to take over the fund and what is now known as the Emergency Assistance Fund was started. Initially, we helped people with their heating bills when they came up short, but since the pandemic, the fund has broadened to helping people with rent payments, electrical bills, phone bills, medical expense and more while still helping with heating expenses. Since the start, the fund has paid out more than $37,000 to help people with emergency financial situations. We often partner with member churches when the needs are greater than our limits allow.

To better help those in need, the council also partners with the Saranac Lake Service Unit of the Salvation Army. We organize the annual Red Kettle Campaign with up to 40 volunteers that ring bells to raise funds for those in need. We then have several council members who are certified Salvation Army workers to administer those funds through the Army during the following year, often in direct cooperation with our own Emergency Assistance Fund. The Saranac Lake Red Kettle Campaign has become a poster child of success with more than $10,000 being raised every year.

In addition to these direct ministries, we also administer a Children’s Fund specifically targeted to help local children. For the past several years, the council has funded $6,000 per year to purchase winter outerwear, gloves and boots for needy children. We also work closely with the school district to address children’s needs that they identify. Every year end, we put together Holiday Food Boxes for families in need. They can have a holiday meal complete with a whole turkey, along with enough food to help the family over the holiday period when the schools are closed. About 100 boxes get distributed every December as a part of the program.

To try and help the local housing crisis, we found out that there were vacant apartments at the Harrietstown Housing Authority that were not getting prepared and re-occupied because of pandemic related staff shortages and the amount of work needed to return units to move-in condition. The council volunteered painting and cleaning crews from member churches to the authority and, as a result, four apartments have now been put back into use with more planned for the future.

The ministries of the Ecumenical Council are funded by contributions from member churches, individual church members, individuals in the community and by local organizations. Generous grants received from the Adirondack Foundation, the Cloudsplitter Foundation, the Carpenter Foundation, the Staritch Foundation and others help to keep our operations running smoothly.

The Ecumenical Council has been helping Saranac Lake for more than 40 years. The food pantry was originally a project of the council as was the youth center, the lunch box program and many more. A few people, dedicated to ministry in the name of Jesus Christ, can and are making a real difference to our community. The Church today is still relevant.

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Rich Loeber, a resident of Saranac Lake, is the current president of the Ecumenical Council of Saranac Lake, Inc. The council has representation by the following churches: Adirondack Alliance Church, High Peaks Church, St Luke’s Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity, First Presbyterian Church, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), St Bernard’s Roman Catholic Church, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist Association.