By Sharon Dunn, Greeley Tribune

Facing hardship has been Pat Logan’s life for the past 20 years, but she won’t complain.

Life is what it is, and God puts in front of her what she can face, she’ll say.

So she’s faced her husband’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis.

She faced being the family breadwinner.

She’s faced medical problems of her own, which eventually drove the family to bankruptcy.

She faced losing her home.

She faced her father’s death just before Thanksgiving, while keeping her commitment to bake 70 loaves of banana bread to feed the homeless and needy in Greeley this past fall.

She stands up, without much bravado, and trudges past the hardships, knowing there’s an end to her means.

Logan is a happy volunteer: She runs the Westview Church of Christ’s food pantry; works on the Faith Community Service Fund, which helps people in the community with emergency needs; and has spent the past year cooking for the homeless on every third Sunday in Lincoln Park. Soon, she’ll work with her church’s Changing Lives ministry, a long-term project to help people get out of crisis situations.

“I wouldn’t change it, and I won’t stop because we’re making the city a better place to be,” said Logan, 51, of Greeley.

The relatively new Greeley resident carries a large notebook filled with programs she’s involved in through Westview. She stuffs extra food in her car to help fill her church’s food pantry, and she often can be found helping those in need, even if it’s going to dollar stores to expand on emergency food boxes she helps people get through the Weld Food Bank.

She and her husband live modestly on her income working at Home Depot in Greeley and his disability checks because of his MS. She’ll admit she’s not very good about talking about herself.

Her friends gladly sing her praises.

“If it were up to her, she’d probably start her own safe house,” said Cindy Sagel of Evans, who works with Logan in her many volunteer ventures. “She has a heart and a passion for people who are down on their luck and who need a second chance. She’s been an inspiration to us.”

For much of her children’s lives, she was the sole breadwinner in the home, as her husband’s MS made it difficult for him to see and impossible for him to work. The family moved to Greeley in 2000, moving north from Denver to be closer to her father, who was in ill health. She has three grown children and six grandchildren.

Almost five years ago, the family went bankrupt after a surgery put her behind on the bills, shortly after she and her husband bought their home.

“We lost our house,” Logan said. “You feel ashamed and embarrassed. When you lose your house, you might as well lose your car, and that was an option we took. ... Now, we don’t sweat the small stuff.”

When they rebounded, Logan poured herself into church. For two years, she’s managed the church’s food pantry, through which she puts together food boxes for people who need help through the Faith Community Service Fund. When she’s not working at Home Depot, she’s working to beef up the pantry, shopping at the Weld Food Bank every Tuesday.

She takes what she can get, and she manages to package complete meals to make the food boxes worthwhile. If she can get pancake mix from the food bank, she’ll buy syrup at the dollar stores to make the meal.

“Every time I turn around, I see more items in the checking account at the dollar store,” said her proud husband, Bill.

Through 2008, she used her pantry’s and food bank’s stores to create entire meals for at least 100 people every third Sunday. She’ll scale that back to every fifth Sunday this year, while she continues with her other ventures.

“My family has not always been happy that I was feeding the homeless on Sundays instead of spending time with them,” Logan said. “It takes a lot more than one Sunday” to create those meals.

Logan knows of hardships and will always reach out: “We’re all one paycheck away from disaster.”

To others, she says: “Volunteer. It gets in your blood. At first, it’s hard. You hear people’s stories and it invokes memories in your soul of things that have happened to you. Many times, I’ve sat and cried with these people. ... I see people who touch my heart. It’s been an eye-opening experience to learn about Greeley and its cultures.”