"What we see today is the product of 60 years of inspired leadership and a lot of hard work," said Burton. "I can't tell you the cumulative investment, but it's minor in terms of the cumulative effort on the part of thousands and thousands."

Church members seek out their local congregation leader, called a bishop, to access the system. Bishops — there are 27,000 worldwide — also have a pool of cash to pay for housing, medical needs or to keep the utilities on, although the church prefers to provide commodities first, Burton said.

This year, the demand for assistance and services has grown, and Burton said church leaders could see the economic downturn coming.

"We're always about three months ahead of the curve in that we start to see the indicators change about three months before you start reading about it in the press," Burton said.

And while the services and commodities are free, Mormon church welfare is not a free ride.

Assistance comes with the expectation of reciprocal service, whether it's a few hours of volunteer work on Welfare Square stocking shelves or some other form of service.

"We really feel strongly that something for nothing only generates a dependence and an entitlement," he said. "If they give something in return, maybe they maintain a feeling of self-respect and dignity rather than just feeling like a beggar on the street."

The church also makes its programs available to nonmembers and in particular reaches out to the homeless.

Jennifer Williams was hesitant to accept help at all. Fresh out of college and in the middle of a difficult divorce, she was struggling to find a career that matched her skills — fluent in Russian and a political science education.

"One of the things that makes it so hard is that you think it's just for people who don't have a job, not for someone like me, working, middle-class and educated," said Williams, 29, now of Washington, D.C. "But, you know, needing help is OK."

Without money to buy a gallon of milk, she temporarily stocked her pantry with church commodities and used the training she got in an executive job search program to land a high-paying job with a defense contractor.

"I think sometimes the secret to being self-reliant is to not be ashamed to ask for help," she said.

It's unclear how many individuals and families need church assistance each year. Church statistics from 2007 show some 210,000 people used employment centers and training to find jobs. But church officials declined to provide The Associated Press with program statistics that provide a demographic snapshot of the average welfare recipient, the amount of time most recipients use the programs and an average value for the commodities provided.

Without that information, it's difficult to assess the effect the church programs have on the community, said Glenn Bailey, director of Crossroads Urban Center, an advocacy and direct services agency for the poor in Salt Lake City that annually gets a share of church commodities for its own emergency food bank.

"I think they play a critical role, it's just that there's no way to tell the size of the gap they fill," said Bailey. "Obviously they are doing a lot of work and helping a lot of people who would go without or seek assistance elsewhere."