Wandering through the Stetson Hills neighborhood, you might be drawn to a home radiating red and green light.

Maybe you’ve been lured by the sound of Christmas jingles, or the garden of holiday inflatables. Perhaps it’s the Nativity scene, a simple silhouette of a holy night.

While the sight is a vision of Christmas, it’s the motive that carries the spirit of the season.

Since 2014, Mark Ingles, chaplain for Colorado Springs’ Evangelical Presbyterian Church, has been decking out his house at 4910 Nugent Drive to collect donations for Care and Share Food Bank.

“They end up helping people that are having a hard time putting food on the table,” Ingles said. “The people that work there are golden. They are wonderful, wonderful folks that have a heart bigger than you can imagine.”

That first year, using just a small Igloo cooler, he collected 165 pounds of food.

“I sat out front, thinking, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll get a few cans and things like that,’” he said. “And it ended up kind of overflowing.”

As word spread, giving grew. The next year, he put out a larger Igloo cooler — and doubled the amount.

“When you give, so much is given back,” he said. “If more people would do things for others like that, it would make all the difference in the world.”

Now, Ingles uses a donated chest freezer. In 2021, he collected 2,700 pounds of food. But that’s not all: He also raised $1,760 for the Springs Rescue Mission after debuting a mailbox for monetary donations.

“I partnered with them for the first time last year, because I wanted to add something more,” Ingles said.

“Sometimes people, when they come by, they may not have food with them.”

It’s no shock that the home attracts so many visitors. Ingles usually starts decorating the week of Thanksgiving, and estimates he has about 6,000 lights on display. The house is so bright that a few years back, a couple hunted down the display after seeing the house on an incoming flight.

“They said, ‘We were flying into Colorado Springs, and we could see the house from the air,’” Ingles recalled.

Each year has a theme. This year, it’s red and green — an ode to his parents, who decorated his childhood home in those colors.

His goal this season is to match last year’s donations, if not raise more. But giving has been slow, Ingles said.

“I’m hoping the slowness will all of a sudden go crazy, and people will be donating a lot,” he said. “Thankfully, I have wonderful neighbors, because there were times when traffic would be all the way down in the cul-de-sac around the corner.”

Since starting this holiday tradition, Ingles has donated 11,615 pounds of food to Care and Share, said the food bank’s CEO, Nate Springer.

“It started small, and then every year it’s grown a little bit,” Springer said. “That kind of individual food drive is one example of one person making a big difference for people in the community.”

The Care and Share Food Bank distributes food to 291 agencies across southern Colorado, with their service area stretching from everything between Kansas and Utah, Springer said.

“We’re lucky to live in the community that we do,” he said. “I just find that when southern Coloradans know that there’s a need, they answer the call.”

But, Springer echoed similar concerns of a slow year from inflation.

“This year is a much bigger challenge than the previous couple years as inflation is still over 8%,” Springer said.

“But what’s really great is we’ve seen a real recovery in individual giving over the last three months and especially in the holiday season.”

As for the Springs Rescue Mission, with a capacity of 450, it serves as the city’s primary homeless shelter, said Travis Williams, the mission’s chief development officer.

“Mark’s been a great friend to the Springs Rescue Mission,” he said. “When good community members highlight other good work in the community, I think it lifts everyone’s spirit a little more.”

Williams emphasized the importance of community support to sustain the services provided by the shelter, which is seeing a slight increase in need this year. Despite offering services seven days a week year-round, the bulk of funding comes during the holidays.

“So much of our funding happens during this season, and we do our best to make sure we can manage throughout the year,” he said. “It’s a daily journey to see how we’re going to do and how to provide care. This community shows up time and time again.”

Hardly any beds go unslept in, with the shelter doors open to all — even pets. As a low-barrier shelter, nearly anyone can find a place to stay, no strings attached.

The mission doesn’t just provide a warm place to stay; the organization also offers food, laundry, medical and dental services.

“Every day of the year, we’re helping hundreds of people,” Williams said. “Homelessness is 365 days a year.”