In this deeply moving episode, we sit down with CMBA Associate Principal Angela McCaulley to discuss the power of community resilience following the historic 2024 flooding in Northwest Iowa. After witnessing 80% of her hometown of Spencer suffer damage, Angela and her husband recognized a critical void when a local non-profit thrift store was unable to reopen. They stepped in to found Fresh Start Market & Boutique, a 501(c)3 organization that has transformed over 20,000 square feet of retail and warehouse space into a hub for recovery. We discuss the logistics of managing a massive donation and voucher system, the emotional impact of having their entire family involved in the effort, and how their commitment united the community. Join us for a conversation about how leadership goes far beyond the drawing board when a community needs a place to start over.

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Episode Transcript

(Skyler): Welcome everybody to another episode of the Laying the Foundation podcast. My name is Skyler. I'm your host, and joining me today is one of our associate principals. And Angela, you've been on the show before.

(Angela): I have!

(Skyler): Angela is joining us once again for another episode of Laying the Foundation. It's super awesome to have you here.

(Angela): Thank you. I appreciate being here.

(Skyler): Absolutely. We always have a really good time chatting together, and today this is going to be an interesting one. I mean, not that it always isn't, but this one… I think a lot of people miss out on sort of the news and things that are happening in Iowa. I mean, you hear a lot about what goes on in New York and Washington and California, all the like sort of bigger states where you're always hearing crazy stuff happening, Florida things along those lines. But I don't think enough people are hearing about some of the big happenings that are going on in Iowa, specifically. And this was definitely one of the biggest ones that happened was with all this flooding. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened? Kind of give us the details that will inevitably lead into what we're going to be talking about today, which is bringing a community together, uniting a community in the face of disasters like the one that we're going to talk about.

(Angela): Sure, absolutely. And honestly, the actual disaster itself probably could be a whole other podcast in and of itself. Um, in June, late June of twenty-four, Spencer, as well as northwest Iowa, not just Spencer, although that's where most of my perspective comes from, experienced devastating flooding, between the twentieth and twenty-first. A lot of factors led up to that. Lots of rain that spring, a really just one singular rain event that was pretty powerful on a Friday night.

It was quite memorable for our Spencer office. We were having our summer party the night before. Um, yeah. We had our big summer barbecue the night before, and then Saturday morning we woke up and, you know, there was mass flooding, um, Homes for devastated, destroyed to a certain degree, many of them businesses. The recovery process for that is not a short one. And so for the last eighteen months or so, we've been working through both short-term recovery of the immediate needs and then long-term recovery, which can last, they say, anywhere between several years to four or five years. And so that's sort of that phase of recovery from the flooding that happened that we're in.

(Skyler): Wow. I can't emphasize enough just how much area this really hit. I mean, this wasn't just one town that got hit by this flooding, as you said, a big chunk of northwest Iowa. I mean, we saw it all the way down here to Sioux City to a certain extent. So, a huge area was hit by this. And obviously, as somebody who comes from an architecture background, you kind of have a bit of a unique perspective because you work with buildings and deal with designing for possible issues like this. So what was it like as an architect to see all of this kind of damage and in your head, knowing maybe a little bit more in depth of what had happened and how things had been devastated?

(Angela): So there's that initial amount of devastation that everyone, without an architecture background, can see. The foundations that were collapsing, the buildings that had been there several days before, and now were underwater. There's some of that that everyone can take in regardless of their background. But some of the long-term effects of the flooding, I think, for those of us who work in the building industry and know the power that water can have, just understanding the lasting effects that that was going to have was really overwhelming. Both the damage of cycling through weather, as well as mold, and all of the long-term downstream effects, not to use that pun lightly, but downstream effects that water can have. That was very overwhelming for the folks in our office to see and kind of understand to a different degree.

The AIA has a group of individuals. Adam, our principal here in Spencer, works with that group as well, who are trained to come into areas that have experienced disaster and help evaluate the structural failures. And, so, there were teams of people with our background that had come in to try to make that process easier and more scientific, more in keeping with our knowledge base. But to just understand on a different level what was happening to the structures was a lot to take in.

(Skyler): Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's almost like I almost wish I didn't know what we were going to have to go into, because you're already mentally thinking about what's going to have to be done to, to fix, to clean up, to come back from all of this. And it's like, oh boy, this is going to be a lot. It's going to be a long run.

(Angela): In disasters, you're trying to take care of the immediate need.

(Skyler): Right, right.

(Angela): That’s the shelter and the food, and making sure that people are safe quickly. I feel as though my brain leaped long-term recovery a little bit sooner, understanding that. Okay, but there's more.

(Skyler): Right.

(Angela): You know, this is a marathon. The sprint of making sure that everyone's taken care of in the short term needs to be dealt with. But the marathon of the after effect, I think, because of our knowledge, sort of is where my mind went sooner.

(Skyler): Absolutely. And I guess looking at that, what were some of those immediate challenges that needed to be overcome or started to kind of present themselves in those first couple of months?

(Angela): So, in the immediate event, the way that Spencer's geography works is that the north and the south side of town are completely cut off from each other. So there was a period of time where those two parts of town really couldn't interact from an infrastructure standpoint, getting food and getting things across the river was really challenging.

Shelters were very quickly set up, and at a certain point, the Red Cross came in and helped with that process. But immediately, the shelters were put together by community members, by the local city administrators, by the police. And those were things that if you had availability and you had time, they were pulling as many people as possible in to help with.

(Skyler): Sure, absolutely. I can't even imagine how terrifying that would be to have the town practically split. You’re going to have family, you're going to have friends that live on the other side of town, and you're like, I don't know what's going on over there because we're cut off from the whole other side of town. That's crazy. It's one thing to be like, I have family and friends that live in an area that has been affected by disaster and reaching out to them, but to have people so close but also so far away because they're being cut off, that's crazy. That's wild to think about for sure.

(Angela): Yeah, it was. To answer your question about how that process works, the logistical side of it is something that we started to get quite involved in. My husband, who assisted with lots of different things, got very deep into the weeds of making sure that meals were set up and that food was being brought in. And there are countless thousands of hours of volunteers who just stepped up to help and did what they needed to do.

(Skyler): And now we're kind of already seeing that beginning of the community uniting in the face of disaster, as is the episode title, so that's awesome. So I guess kind of stemming off of what you sent me. One of those major challenges that kind of came up was the loss of the secondhand store that was in town. They decided not to reopen. I think that's what you had told me. Correct?

(Angela): So they were a business located. We talked about the geography of the north and the south. So they were a business that was located on the south side of town. They were impacted within their storefront, flooding roughly three to three and a half feet of water internally, which, you think about a secondhand store in terms of shelving, any retailer, quite honestly.

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Angela): The stock that you would have in the back, the stuff that you have in front, how you kind of set up your displays and shelving, all of that was devastated. They are an organization that has multiple locations across the state of Iowa and is still operating in those locations. They do a lot of great work. But I think that was just a really overwhelming process for their leadership to come in and see what rebuilding all of that would look like for them.

(Skyler): Right.

(Angela): And so early on, probably a week or two into flood recovery, they had announced that they were not going to reopen, that they were going to clear out as best they could and then not reopen. Which was challenging in that everyone wants to help. We were called from multiple states and family all over the place, saying, “I have this stuff, what can I do with it? I have all these boxes of clothing and the spare couch in my garage. I want to bring it to someone.” But the reality of that process is the actual organization of that stuff. The actual inventory of that requires a whole army of volunteers in and of itself. And so, having what had been our outlet not being available was another layer of challenge. They were an organization that had relationships set up with a lot of the area nonprofits that did outreach to the community already. And so to have that other lifeline taken away, this resource that was within the community was a challenge in and of itself.

(Skyler): Yeah, absolutely. When you really get to thinking about any store and the staffing that they have to have, and they obviously aren't just popping up. They've existed for a while. They've had time to build an organizational platform and everything else to keep goods and stuff flowing. Right? And that's not what we have here. Right? Something happened, took that away. Everything that was already set up is gone. So we have to restart, and we have to be able to do that. As you said, having volunteers is going to take a lot of work. So, with that being said, what did you guys do? You and your husband decided to put forth an initiative to kind of help organize and put this together. Tell me about how that went, what sparked the idea, and what those first steps were.

(Angela): So my husband, Seth, was already working with a logistical group, and we were volunteering at the shelter and doing what we could at that time when people had come to us and said, “Well, I have this stuff that I want to donate, what can I do with it?” We had always told people, just wait, something is going to open up, and it'll be fine. But when that happened, and they were not able to reopen, we sort of felt an obligation to all of these people who we had promised, just hold on to your stuff, there will be somewhere for you to bring it. I don't know that we realized by saying that we were committing to this. I don't know that other people realized that we were committing to this, but that's sort of how the ball got rolling.

(Skyler): Sure!

(Angela): We've told all these people we're going to take their stuff. We have to take their stuff, right?

(Skyler): Well, and now you've got their contacts, you've set up communication with them.

(Angela): So that's, in a sort of comical way, how it got rolling. I mean, we're not just going to let it not happen. I guess we're going to have to just do it ourselves.

(Skyler): Sure.

(Angela): I think knowing what we know now, I don't know that we would have jumped in quite in that way. To have jumped in literally both feet first. But I wouldn't change how it happened and how it went down. I mean, we're kind of operating on a little bit of limited sleep.

(Skyler): Yeah, I can only imagine, given the circumstances.

(Angela): You know, maybe not all decision-making was at its peak of connection. But regardless, it was a very simple conversation on a Friday night of, well, I guess we're going to find all the people we can to make this happen.

(Skyler): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, somebody's got to do it, I guess, is kind of the key thing. Fantastic. Okay, so what did you guys come up with? What did you guys decide on? What would inevitably come out of this?

(Angela): So the first steps of organizing a new version of a secondhand store were understanding the logistics of what they had done to set this location up. They'd been operating for roughly ten years, very successfully. They had sort of a boutique model of a secondhand store where they took a lot of pride in the organization and making sure things looked nice, and making sure that there was a lot of integrity. And so the former general manager was a neighbor of ours, and we had her contact information from that. We reached out to her and said, “So we're thinking about doing this, right? Can you meet with us and tell us, just very basically, what you think it's going to take?” Which snowballed into forming a board?

We knew that in order to operate efficiently and give back in the way that we wanted to, we needed to set it up as a nonprofit. So we collected both my husband and I, the former manager, and then another individual, whom we knew from the community, who had an interest in giving back, but also just secondhand stores and thrifting in general.

(Skyler): Oh yeah!

(Angela): They joined us in that process. And this kind of little ragtag group of a board was formed. In our context, we were able to establish a nonprofit eventually. That doesn't happen overnight, but to start the process moving for that, and then just start some fairly straightforward fundraising of picking up the phone and making phone calls and just asking people, “We won't need your money forever, but would you make a donation to get this up and running?”

(Skyler): Right, absolutely.

(Angela): “Would you commit to helping us make this happen?”

(Skyler): Right. Awesome.

(Angela): And people stepped up with so much generosity.

(Skyler): That's awesome! Once again, you know, community is uniting. We're seeing it! We're seeing it in real time, the community coming together to make sure this happens. You've got your board made up of, you said, the manager, the previous one. So they obviously come in with a lot of know-how, with a lot of information, which is incredibly beneficial. You've got amazing organizations that are pitching in. We're building this concept. So, did you end up having to start the store first before you got the nonprofit status, or did the nonprofit status…? Because I know it is paperwork you had to file. You have to send it in. They have to make sure that you're legitimate, obviously. So, what kind of chicken or the egg came first?

(Angela): So the location where our store is set up is the same as the previous secondhand store. And so we started the process of rebuilding the display and rebuilding the infrastructure, and all of that process simultaneously with the setting up of the nonprofit. The Iowa status came quite quickly.

(Skyler): Oh, awesome!

(Angela): Federal status probably took another nine to ten-ish months to actually fully come through. But the Iowa status probably came within six or so weeks. So, working with them again, really, really well-informed people. Great lawyers, great accountants who have done that previously and were willing to donate their time and efforts and materials to make sure that worked out. That's not something that I could have done in the same way without phoning a friend and reaching out to people; that's what they do.

(Skyler): Absolutely. Again, people coming together, which is awesome! And that's the beauty of it, too, is getting to see each person that comes in and gets involved. As somebody who's on a nonprofit board as well, I get to see this. And they all bring something different and something so key. As you said, you had lawyers who came in and helped with all the legal know-how and all of that stuff. You had accountants come in, bringing in their financial know-how to get some of this stuff filed. That's so cool! You had people who had prior experience with the secondhand store concept! This is really cool, getting to see everybody come together.

(Angela): There's a lot of hands-on to the actual building of the facility. There was a lot of literal scrubbing of shelving and setting things up. And that process took a long time. But the back-of-house business side of it, making sure that once it was up and running, it was set up in a way that could be successful, was equally time-consuming and challenging, and set us up for success long term.

(Skyler): Right!

(Angela): So statuses came in from Iowa, inevitably from the federal government.

(Skyler): And now we've got the FSM store. What how does it do? How does it work? Obviously, we know it's a secondhand store. But it’s a nonprofit. We're trying to help out the community. How does it work? What does it do? How does it function?

(Angela): So Fresh Start Market, which is a name that we had brainstormed, trying to figure out, okay, what do we need? What we need is a fresh start.

(Skyler): Yes!

(Angela): We need something that seems joyful and cheerful. And again, another person donating their time and talent, a local area friend and graphic designer, jumped in immediately and was like, “Oh, I got this! I'm going to put together a logo and information for you.” So we thought the name sort of speaks for itself in that the community needed a fresh start. People, to a certain degree, needed to start over.

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Angela): But also your donations, your things, your items are also getting a fresh start with people who, now you don't need them anymore, but someone else can use them and bring them into their home. Oftentimes, people are repurposing things that they buy from us, and it's really cool to look at the different social media pages of things that people will post where they took someone else's piece of furniture and combine it with something else that they purchased. And they made this completely brand-new item that didn't exist until they bought those two items from us. And that really is, in essence, what the overall philosophy of the store is. Starting over and giving people a new opportunity.

Our organization’s mission, as a non-profit, is to give back to flood recovery. An organization that's kind of a sister organization to our Chamber of Commerce was formed, called the Long-Term Recovery Group. And so, early on, when we were up and running and had the ability, we put a voucher program together with them as well as some other organizations, to start to filter some of those extra things into the community, and to start to deal with the needs that people were having. Now, post flood, people were finding items that either they had lost or needed to replace, but didn't have the resources to pay full retail price for.

(Skyler): I definitely want to get into the voucher program and see how all that works, because I think that'd be really interesting. But really quick, before I do, you had mentioned previously with the stores, there's a whole process to getting up and running and organizing everything and setting up your building just right. And, as an architect, obviously, we work with a lot of businesses to try to help them set up their buildings just right. So you guys had this space, how did you rework it so that it could work for what you guys needed it for?

(Angela): I think in my architect brain, there was going to be more Architecting of the space.

(Skyler): Right, right. Well, and that's the part that you're bringing in, right? You had your lawyers, your accountants, and the people helping set up. You have the architects. Right?

(Angela): The reality of that is we were so fortunate to have several of the longtime employees agree to rejoin the organization or this new organization and put their trust in us, which, I don't know where we would be if they hadn't decided to do that. But I think the one thing I've learned in my role working with owners and clients is to let people do what they do, let them tell you what is working, and keep that process rolling. So we didn't keep everything exactly the same. Some of that, logistically, we just didn't have the shelving or the infrastructure in place, but largely the overall flow of where you drop off donations, where they're processed, where they're priced, and then disbursed to the store, the back-of-house side. How it flows from the back to the front is fairly similar.

(Skyler): Okay.

(Angela): Some of that has to do with how the space is laid out. It wasn't broken. So we're not going to try to reinvent the wheel. Some larger pieces of equipment make that flow work the way that it does. We switched up a few things. Some departments needed better visual access to the front, or changed up some of the displays and made them work better, or things that are popular, we rearranged some things. Learning from some of the challenges they had before, because we were completely starting with a blank slate.

(Skyler): Right.

(Angela): But overall, I did make a floor plan.

(Skyler): Yeah! Of course!

(Angela): But overall, a lot of those processes remain fairly similar.

(Skyler): Sure, that makes sense. I mean, obviously, and you said it yourself, when we go to a lot of these businesses or schools or whatever else, we meet with the staff. They're the people who are doing stuff here every single day. They know what's working and what's not working, probably better than anybody. And we want to get that information because we want to make sure that what we design is the best possible. Let's fix all those problems that we can, or at least as many as we can.

(Angela): Right.

(Skyler): With the space that we're given. And so, it's the perfect opportunity to say this is what existed before. Talk to the previous staff. Say, “Hey, how can we make this a little bit streamline processes? How can we make this more efficient along those lines?” And then you jump in with your expertise and draw up that big fancy plan and say, “Let's do this!” And here we are!

(Angela): Some of those early conversations did feel very similar to a design development meeting or some earlier stages of design where we're just taking in what's working, what's not right, and how do we make some tweaks to make it work better. But it was, I know it sounds very serious, and it's important work. But there was a lot of fun, and we had a ton of fun with the staff we had then, and we still have fun with the new staff that we have now.

(Skyler): It's important to, again, we're coming out of this disaster. We want to keep morale high. So it's good that fun is being had because that means people haven't given up. People haven't said, “I don't think we're ever going to be able to rebuild.” And so people still had that positivity within them to say, “We're doing something, we're a part of something, we're going to rebuild.” And there's a possibility that a lot of things come out better than they were before. And that's exciting! And obviously, you had limitations given the context of things. There were obviously limitations to what you had access to, or how much you could rebuild from all of this. I would imagine when it came to the Fresh Start Market.

(Angela): Yeah, we made due early on. Or we were very scrappy.

(Skyler): Yeah, oh, you’ve got to be!

(Angela): With how things were laid out or displayed, trying to just maximize the monetary donation that people gave us, and make sure that we were being good stewards of that, and making it go as far as possible.

(Skyler): Absolutely. And I mean, to a certain extent, as an architect, there are times where we have to tell the client, “Hey, what do you guys want?” And then say, “Okay, well, this is the resource or this is the space available. We might not be able to get everything in there, but we're going to do our best to get as much as we can.” You work with what you've got. I want to jump back to when you mentioned the voucher program. How does the voucher program work?

(Angela): So, in the early days, it was hard to understand who needed what because everyone needed stuff, of course. And as a nonprofit ourselves, making sure that we were making smart decisions that set us up for long-term success. And so it was challenging at first, especially when we didn't have a full back room full of inventory. If someone is coming in and they say, “I have a need.” How do we manage that? So early on, we decided the best way to do that was to put our trust in organizations that were boots on the ground, working with people, meeting with people, and understanding what they needed. And so the initial group that received vouchers was the Long-Term Recovery Group, because they were dealing with the people recovering from the flood first and foremost.

(Skyler): Right

(Angela): Which is keeping with our mission. And so we worked with them to give them, similar to a big gift certificate, written out. We gave them a series of those that we tracked, and they would, in turn, give them out to the clients that they were working with. Specifically, Skyler needs a couch, or Skyler needs winter clothes. I mean, think of all the things that you store in your basement, and then to realize one day that they're no longer there. And so they helped us determine what families needed, and how much. And then our store manager helped track that from the Long-Term Recovery Group. We spun off to other organizations early on. We were trying to hit maybe one big group a month. So we did a big outreach to the schools.

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Angela): We gave each of the area schools a certain chunk of vouchers that they could distribute as they saw fit, as well as some to keep internally for teachers or classroom items. Our schools were very heavily impacted, and the Spencer School District was. So some of the vouchers were for them to use to replace classroom materials or things that they felt like they could use to just boost morale. Honestly, some of the schools, I don't know how they ended up spending them, but just to help them feel like there was a new opportunity for them as well. We did the same with churches. We contacted all the churches we could and let them distribute them as they saw fit. As we've kind of moved past the initial stages of development, we have some lasting relationships with Upper Des Moines, some of our organizations that are seeing people have those long-term needs. Maybe they were struggling before, and now they're really struggling.

So, helping those groups do what they do best and distribute them and make those judgment calls, and then we just filter them through people that are kind of directly connected to the people in need, and letting them help determine who's needs this or who needs this or who needs this. And then that way it all streamlined the process, essentially.

(Skyler): Right.

(Angela): It made it fair for everybody.

(Skyler): Right.

(Angela): We decided early on that we didn't want to be in the business of deciding whose needs were more important than someone else's. We just wanted to be the outlet of that distribution. And so, allowing those other groups who spend countless hours figuring out how best to help people, let them do what they do.

(Skyler): Exactly.

(Angela): And let us just be kind of that conduit of getting them what they need.

(Skyler): Absolutely. Everybody has their spot and their need. We focus on this, and we do this really well. These people do this really well. We're all going to work together and make it happen. So yeah, that totally makes sense. Awesome.

You had mentioned that… and again, we've talked about how many people are kind of coming together and uniting to help with this initiative, to help with the long-term solutions. You also mentioned that your family got involved. You had mentioned your husband obviously was a key part in this, but your whole family has really gotten involved in this. Can you talk about how everybody's gotten involved and maybe even a little bit about what opportunities you saw for your family to learn from this experience as well?

(Angela): Our kids, they lived at that store.

(Skyler): Yeah!

(Angela): Last year, they would go to school and then come home, and then help set things up or do what their ages allowed them to do. They were ranging from, we have three kids, ranging from eleven to six. So there was a broad range of things. A six-year-old can sweep.

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Angela): And so his tasks were maybe a little bit different than big sister, who could help price things or could help cut things out. Once we became operational and we're up and running, some of those, those tasks shifted to helping the cashier or filling bags as people were checking out, helping with the checkout, they kind of all had the niche thing that they enjoyed. Obviously, the six-year-old really enjoyed helping with toys. I don't know how helpful he was all the time, but they all found their thing that they really enjoyed doing to make things different and better. Our middle daughter really enjoyed working at the front, cashiering and helping people fill their bags and get checked out, and even just greeting people at the door.

The first, I don't know, probably the first six months or so, we were only open on Saturdays because we had a fairly limited staff. And so when I say limited staff, it was three or four paid people and then the McCaulleys. So, they were doing what they could to help keep things up and running and keep the boat afloat.

(Skyler): Absolutely. I mean, there's a lot that has to be done. As you said, there's pricing, there's cleaning, there's greeting, there's running the register, and then there's the whole back end of things, too, of collecting the donations, organizing the donations, bringing it out onto the floor, and organizing it there. There’s a ton of stuff that has to go into all this. That's awesome.

(Angela): Yeah, we're still a pretty low-tech organization as far as the point of sale. We have a point-of-sale system, but all of the price tags and all of those sorts of things are printed out on your computer. And then we cut the tags. So there's still a lot of hands-on work that has to be done to get an item from donation to pricing to storefront, and then eventually home with someone.

(Skyler): Absolutely. That makes sense. I mean, it's again, we don't always see it when we go into a store, but there's so much stuff that has to go into getting things into the hands of the customers. There's a very long process. Well, you guys celebrated in October. I think it was the first anniversary of Fresh Start Market. That's exciting. Looking back at everything that you've had to do, it's been a heck of a process to get where you're at now. But how do things feel now that we're one year down the line?

(Angela): So, it feels great. The goal was to get to a point where, as a board, we could be more hands-off in the day-to-day operation and let the staff do what they do. Offering jobs and employment is sort of a secondary mission of the organization. And so it was really never our intention to always be fully in the weeds of the day-to-day. Right now, the people who know how to do the tasks can do that work and do it well and efficiently, and we can go in and help as we want to and as we see fit, and let them do what they do best. So that's been really rewarding. At its height, the previous organization had eight full-time and eight part-time employees. We're close to that now.

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Angela): That's kind of been the ultimate goal to get back to where they started.

(Skyler): Wow. That's awesome. And that's a lot of people, too. That's like sixteen total. Wow.

(Angela): And some volunteers come in and probably put in a full-time person's amount of work regularly, who have their own task that they love doing. There’s the person who puts out the books, who is a volunteer, and she’s our librarian. And that's a whole thing that she does on her own. And that's a volunteer position. A lot of books come through for those secondhand stores.

(Skyler): You read a book. Now what? You know, I’ve got to hand it off to the next person. That’s awesome. So, I guess my final question to finish things off here for those of our audience who are listening right now, and they're hearing about this organization and they're thinking to themselves, maybe I want to help in some way, shape or form, or maybe I want to give to Fresh Start Market in some way, shape or form or, the Long-Term Recovery Group. What can they do to kind of help Spencer and Northwest Iowa to a certain extent? Um, yeah. What can they do? How can they help?

(Angela): So short term, we take all types of volunteers. As I said, my six-year-old was pushing a broom. We'll take all types of volunteers, whatever their skill set. They sort of have the motto of you know, “Come in, come when you can, and leave when you must.” And so we don't have any kind of formal sign-up as far as volunteers, if you show up or come and want to help, we'll find something for you to do. If you have a kind of a longer-term goal or want to be more organized about it. We're active on Facebook. If you would find the organization on Facebook, just contact the manager through there or through our email. They would happily allow you to come anytime you're available. Donating things is always really great. Especially, we're recording this at the beginning of January, and everyone is kind of in that new, clean home mode. So we will gladly take donations of items. That's always a possibility, too. We would happily be the outlet for your stuff and give it a second chance with someone else. And then, of course, obviously monetary, if you felt so inclined, we would accept that as well. The Long-Term Recovery Group here in Spencer is an outlet for donating to, which is operated through the Chamber Foundation. So they do have a nonprofit status and would help with the distribution of funds. If you follow them on Facebook, they'll occasionally be asking for volunteers as well, if they've gotten in, like a shipment of building supplies, or they still have some volunteer needs that they'll occasionally seek volunteers for as well. And that's a great, a great organization to follow and be involved in.

(Skyler): Absolutely. That's awesome. Well, again, Angela, thank you so much for giving us the rundown. I think this is a really cool, unique experience or perspective to get to see how things recover after a disaster. We always hear about it, right? And a lot of times it's not in Iowa, right? We see tornadoes pretty often since we're technically in that tornado alley, but a lot of times, you hear about things like earthquakes or hurricanes, and you hear about how much they affected the community. And a few years down the line, you'll hear about, “Oh, they're still doing this to do recovery efforts,” or whatever the case may be. And you're like, “Oh, yeah, I guess I do remember that.” But it's great to be able to hear from a firsthand perspective what's going on. What does that look like? What is the process that has to go through that? And some people don't think about all the finer details, right? Of people's houses needing to be rebuilt. But what about the people who need clothes? They need furniture to fill their houses with, because it all got destroyed in the flooding and things along those lines. Who's providing that? And so it's really cool to get to see where that comes from. And obviously, the initiative of a handful of people that inevitably put together a big program that really helps the community and helps to, as we said, unite the community to come together. So thank you so much.

(Angela): Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to share that with you. And I think as we move forward, it certainly changed how I look at those news stories when I hear of communities that are experiencing things. It's easy to feel for them and want to help in the short term. But it's been eye-opening to understand what that long-term plan looks like and how we can continue to be a resource.

(Skyler): Absolutely! Well, thank you again, Angela. I really appreciate you jumping on the show with me today.

(Angela): Thank you.

(Skyler): Absolutely.