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Interfaith Community Services is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a $1 million gift from one of its most loyal volunteers, Ed Jenkins.

Thanks to

Posted Feb 17, 2010, 12:00 am

Jane Erikson TucsonSentinel.com

Interfaith Community Services is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a $1 million gift from one of its most loyal volunteers.

Ed Jenkins, a retired senior partner at Arthur Andersen, has been answering the front-desk phone at ICS every Monday morning for nearly seven years. He and his wife, Kay, gave $1 million to start an endowment that ICS hopes to grow with other donations and bequests to $2.5 million by the end of this year.

"My wife and I are very pleased to be able to do this," Ed Jenkins said Tuesday. "We hope this will give other people the incentive to help us get the endowment to a size that will be even more meaningful."

More than 36,000 seniors, disabled persons and families in financial crisis received help from ICS last year. The agency provides food boxes, transportation to doctor appointments, emergency financial assistance to help pay for prescriptions and other necessities throughout the Tucson area.

ICS Executive Director Bonnie Kampa said the Jenkins' donation is "a wonderful gift for ICS." The donation could generate $50,000 or more annually, she said.

But ICS, like other non-profits, is struggling to make up for cuts in city, county and state funding, Kampa said. For ICS, which has an annual budget of $1.1 million, those cuts will mean a loss of up to $150,000 this year, she said.

At the same time, ICS is receiving more and more requests for the food boxes, transportation, emergency cash and other services it offers seniors, disabled persons and families in financial crisis. Nearly 50,000 services were provided to 36,331 individuals last year – a 49 percent increase over the number of people served in 2008.

Started in 1985, Interfaith Community Services has 18 full- and part-time employees and more than 600 volunteers, most of them members of the 51 diverse faith organizations who belong to the non-profit.

The agency's dedicated crew of volunteers is one of the things that attracted Jenkins, a former chairman of the Financial Standards Accounting Board, which establishes and refines accounting standards nationwide.

"I've always been very actively involved with the not-for-profit world as a volunteer," said Jenkins, who was inducted as the 78th member of the international Accounting Hall of Fame in 2005.

"One of the things I first noticed about ICS is that the volunteers have all been trained and have direct contact with clients, whether it's driving someone to a doctor's appointment or giving out a food box," Jenkins said.

That enables ICS to keep up with increased demand despite relatively limited resources, he said.

After serving for several months as a volunteer, Jenkins joined the ICS finance committee, then its board of directors, which he has chaired for three years.

"I became involved with ICS almost by accident," he said. "I was looking for something to do and I think my wife was happy to have me out of the house a little bit. A friend suggested ICS. I just kind of got hooked."

Laura Penny, executive director of the Women's Foundation of Southern Arizona, said $1 million gifts can have a huge impact on non-profit organizations like ICS.

"I think it's wonderful that ICS received this gift," Penny said. "It takes a real visionary to understand the importance of the sustainability of the organization – especially right now when there is so much immediate need in the community."