Multicultural Family Resource Center

(music)

Diversity can be a divisive word these days. But one rural Iowa county is welcoming newcomers to help boost its economy. We'll talk to leaders in Greene County about what they're doing on this edition of Iowa Press.

(music)

Funding for Iowa Press was provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

(music)

The Associated General Contractors of Iowa, the public's partner in building Iowa's highway, bridge and municipal utility infrastructure.

(music)

Across Iowa, hundreds of neighborhood banks strive to serve their communities, provide jobs and help local businesses. Iowa banks are proud to back the life you build. Learn more at iowabankers.com.

(music)

For decades, Iowa Press has brought you political leaders and newsmakers from across Iowa and beyond. Celebrating more than 50 years on statewide Iowa PBS, this is the Friday, May 2nd edition of Iowa Press. Here is Kay Henderson.

(music)

[Henderson] Greene County is a small county in West Central Iowa. Its current population is about 8,700. And, like most of rural America, it has been losing population for quite some time. Our guests today are residents who hope welcoming newcomers will change that. Last year, the Multicultural Family Resource Center, that is what it is called, opened and it aims to fill open jobs and grow the population. Our guests today have all been instrumental in starting that organization. Let me introduce them to you. Sara Huddleston is Director of the Multicultural Family Resource Center based in the county seat of Jefferson. She spent more than 30 years as a community leader in Storm Lake, including serving three terms on the Storm Lake City Council. Sid Jones is former President of the Greene County Development Corporation. That is the umbrella non-profit economic development organization that established the Multicultural Family Resource Center. He retired a couple of years ago as President and CEO of a local bank in Jefferson. And finally, Chuck Offenburger chaired the steering committee that helped create the Multicultural Family Resource Center. Of course, many of our viewers probably remember him as the longtime Iowa Boy columnist at the Des Moines Register. To the three of you, thanks for joining us for this conversation.

[All] Thank you.

[Henderson] Also joining us at the table, Brianne Pfannenstiel. She is the Chief Politics Reporter at the Des Moines Register. And Erin Murphy is the Des Moines Bureau Chief for the Gazette in Cedar Rapids.

[Murphy] So, Sara, let me start with you. Just by way of introduction here for viewers who might not be familiar, just kind of describe for us what is the Multicultural Family Resource Center?

[Huddleston] Yes, absolutely. The Multicultural Family Resource Center is a non-profit organization, a 501c3. And we are funded by a USDA grant and also by private businesses and donors, also part of the money comes from the school district. We are providing services that are free and confidential to the residents and newcomers of Jefferson and Greene County in general from, it could be for translation services, interpreting, to also bridge the communication between the newcomers and the city of Jefferson or the county.

[Murphy] Sid Jones, you go way back with this to its beginnings. Why did you want to get involved with this?

[Jones] MFRC, and that’s the acronym that we'll refer to, it kind of evolved and it really started probably a decade ago. We as a community, we have been blessed with a lot of factories and tremendous jobs and continued growth. And most of those are homegrown factories. And so, there is a lot of loyalty from them. And GCDC had done its job in creating jobs and tax base to the point that we had more jobs than we had people. So, we quickly realized that we needed to develop the community and kind of shift our focus from industrial to community development. And what is going to make us the best place to live? And so, we brought together a young group of 40 people and formed a task force called Vision 2020. We were assisted by Zach Mannheimer out of Des Moines to do that. Very successful. Came up with a list of five priorities. New schools, we needed new facilities. We needed early learning centers, not daycare centers, early learning centers. We needed a variety of housing, not just single-family homes. We needed trails and recreation outdoors, an aquatic park. And the last one was a brew pub. And that brought a lot of controversy, but it was kind of good. And they said, Sid, you might go to that brew pub from 6 to 8 but we'll come when you leave. And so, it'll be used by a lot of people. And so, anyway, that took us up to pre-COVID and pre-COVID our factories were still growing. They were also starting to look at the age of their workforce, a lot of baby boomers. Those were local factories. They went to work for their friends and they worked there their whole life and they still have. But they see that happening. And so, a workforce is going to turn over and it's not only what they had today, but it's the workforce that is going to be needed. So, we went to work and COVID hit and then everything slowed back down and we obviously came out of COVID, but during that time they laid off employees, they let employees go, they had a lot of early retirements happen. And we came out of COVID and their demand picked right back up again, stronger than ever, and as we all remember everybody had a help wanted sign out. And those factories really needed help. And we started to reach out to how do we do this? Diversity it the word that kept coming up, we have to diversify. We don't graduate enough people out of Greene County or even the region to satisfy the demand that is going to be here. So, we have to a different solution. Diversity was that solution. We started to work with a young man by the name of Carlos Arguello. Carlos has a business in Grimes called Latino IQ. And he grew up in Carroll, graduated from Carroll, moved there from South America when he was a very young person, went to UNI, went to work for John Deere as international business, traveled the world for John Deere, came back to the Des Moines area, Grimes, and said, there is a bigger job for me in life and it is bringing my population and my culture to Central Iowa. And we have a lot of the same culture. So, about that time I'm going to Kiwanis breakfast and in walks Chuck Offenburger. I knew Chuck from a few years and his role in Storm Lake as an educator at Buena Vista University and also very active in the diversity program that they were working on. So, Chuck was a really welcome addition.

[Murphy] Yeah, and let's have Chuck pick it up there. What motivated you to get involved, Chuck?

[Offenburger] Well, I had been in Storm Lake five years and moved to Jefferson in 2004, rural part of Greene County actually. And as I got to know the community, I knew it pretty well anyway, but as I got to know it even better, I saw the problem Sid was referring to with the workforce situation particularly in the industries but also Greene County Medical Center, one of our largest employers, and also Wild Rose Casino and Resort, which is a big entertainment center that we have on the edge of Jefferson. Everybody needed employees. And I was concerned that if we could not come with more workforce in Greene County, we were going to be threatened with losing our industries. We had seen one of them already outsource about, moved a facility to, opened a facility in Brooksville, Mississippi just because there was more access to labor there, skilled labor like they needed. And they wound up with 150, 200 jobs down there that could have been in Greene County. So, I knew this was serious. One of the great, one of the things that makes Greene County a little different than most rural Iowa counties is that industrial base. We're a great ag county for sure and a lot of those farmers also need labor. But then in addition those industries, one thing about them, there's five of them particularly, all homegrown. And now they're mostly in the second generation of management. One concern, you get into the third generation or subsequent and there's less tie to the community and I thought, if we can't answer this workforce need, we're going to be in trouble, somebody is going to move. Having been in Storm Lake, I did not have that fear of diversity or uncertainty about it. I think Storm Lake wound up because of its diversification over a 30-year period becomes one of the most vibrant, youngest, rural Iowa towns there is, one of the nicest towns. And I was lucky enough to be part of it for five years. And in that time period I became good friends with Sara Huddleston. So, from the start when Sid asked me to get involved with the initiative by the Greene County Development Corporation, the economic development group on the diversity initiative as we started calling it, right from the start I was feeding everything I was doing to Sara in Storm Lake thinking if we're going to hire a director ever, I'm lobbying for her. And so that is my background with the initiative. It's working well.

[Pfannenstiel] So, you guys come from a pretty conservative corner of the state. This is a county that voted to re-elect Donald Trump by a 2 to 1 margin in this last election. Sid Jones, how has this been received by the community? How has this initiative been received?

[Jones] I think it has been received very, very well. There's always -- change is hard and really hard for rural Iowa. And from the very beginning though we concentrated on families and we concentrated on documented families. And so, we haven't had an explosion. We didn't expect that we would. And it's a slow growth. But we've had a good growth and Sara can speak to that. But I think the control that we put over it. We also from the very beginning had town hall meetings, we called them. We went to every community in the county, two in Jefferson plus the other five, we had seven total. And we just sat down with people and talked about it. It was very open. Carlos was a big part of those meetings for us because he grew up in it, he understood it. He also talked about the values of the Latino population and at that point we were kind of concentrating on Latino but it really expanded from that to multicultural. But he talked about the values of the Hispanic population, number one is family, number two is faith, number three is fun. He said, if I look at the ancestors of Greene County, the very same thing. They came from all over the world. They were diverse. They also all had that same moral background though. And he said, that's the moral background that a lot of the Latino population in particular would bring here. So, we felt kind of the right situation and as he talked and just talked about that culture in general, I think the threat kind of went away and they realized that we do have a need. We have to help solve this problem or we're going to have a critical problem.

[Pfannenstiel] And Sara Huddleston, the groups that you're serving, the families, the individuals, again being in a conservative area, what kind of concerns did they have about moving to rural Iowa? And how do you work with them on those issues?

[Huddleston] I think one of the things I'd like to mention is when Sid was talking about the values. Iowa, rural Iowa has a lot in common with a lot of the immigrants that move from Central and South America and all over the world. They are looking for small communities, safe. They are very familiar to move around. And so, I've been running into a lot of people, was quite surprised for myself, to be in the middle of close to the Des Moines area. But how many immigrants from other countries are living there, to be honest with you? I have a few Canadians approaching the organization for immigration questions that are legal permanent residents or U.S. citizens in the county. But I've also been working with other Latinos that are more from Central America and South America. And basically, they feel safe, they like the community and they want to stay there with their families. So, so far for me it has been going well, it has been going good. There is the little fear that we all know with the administration that is running now. But again, they are up to and informed with the national TV news. You're probably familiar with Univision or Telemundo and they are up to and listening to those news. In fact, every time I run into an immigrant, I am an advocate for immigration rights. That is due to my job that I did in the past working with immigrant women in the state. And I provided this information which is about the First Amendment of the Constitution, the rights of anyone that is in this country the right to due process. So, at least they are informed, they are educated and they know what to do. I always try to find the resources that are available in our state to these people. But most of the time working with someone they are a legal permanent resident or a U.S. citizen. It was a surprise to me that I found a few Canadians in Greene County and they want to support and help other immigrants. It was a big shock for me, like wow, we've got a network and I want to build that network in Greene County with all these countries that are there and already established.

[Henderson] Sid, I want to ask about the jobs. You and Chuck talked a lot about job openings. What kind of jobs are they? How many are there? And what skills are needed from the people who would fill those jobs?

[Jones] Well, the factories are becoming more advanced. So, advanced manufacturing is certainly a part of their world. Robotics is a part of their world. Also, what we kind of got started was a little technology sort of a little boom that happened right prior to COVID with a company out of Des Moines called Pillar Technologies. And we talked about our school system and we were successful generating $35 million to build a new high school and a career academy that is attached to it, which is linked to Iowa Central Community College. So, there are a lot of routine factory work jobs. But there is also a more skilled level that is coming and they know that. And so, it's a little bit different than the, especially the Hispanic population or a lot of the other cultures that came to Iowa and they have been in the meatpacking industry. These are different industries. They're a cleaner industry. They're more high tech and it's going that direction. So, I think there is a variety. There is also variety in health care. We have our own county hospital and employment is always a challenge for them. They have done a terrific job in the diversity side. And Mary -- Mary Nieto, she is the Human Resources Director there and has done a terrific job with the hospital leading them. Lots of service. Our casino is a very important part of our county and the revenue that it generates and shares with our economic development and community development activities is terrific. And so, they also have a lot of jobs.

[Murphy] Chuck, let me ask you about the housing in the area. As you draw in, or attempt to draw in people, there needs to be places for them to live. I know there has been, from reading your writing on this project over the years, there has been some efforts to get some housing developments created. Where is that process? Is the need being met there?

[Offenburger] Finally we're turning a corner. And we for years, Jefferson averaged building three new houses a year, three new houses a year. And we just could not get contractors to come in, our own contractors who we tried to interest in expanding, they had the same problem all of our businesses in Greene County had, they couldn't hire enough workers. So, we had to look at trying to find outside contractors and it took a long time and finally a guy from the Des Moines area, Urbandale actually, Andy Roland, came in, small business getting started building houses and duplexes and apartments and Andy finally came in and he has built now 17 residential units in the county. And as a result of that, and then also Greene County was named a thriving community with the Iowa Economic Development Authority, and that opened up workforce tax credits that we could get. And so, that spread the word among other contractors and now we finally have contractors coming in. It's happening slowly, slower than we'd want, but it is happening. We have a 40-unit apartment complex that they're going to start on this summer. It's just in the north part of town. We have fill in housing projects happening from two or three different contractors. But we also, besides Jefferson, we have the five other towns that are spread around the county. And keep in mind that two of our industries, three of our industries in fact, are in the little towns of Paton or Scranton. We need housing development in those communities too. So, because this is a workforce growth initiative in addition to being a diversity initiative, there is an opportunity here realistically for all of the Greene County towns to grow again, which I think is really exciting. And we have to go where the growth is and the growth is in the newcomer population. All over Iowa you can see that. And as we've gone into this, I've said it's an exciting idea that we're going to have a multicultural workforce using the Iowa work ethic to produce for the global market. And I think that is something that we can keep our eye on in Greene County.

[Pfannenstiel] Sara, you mentioned some of your funding comes from the school system. What has been your involvement with the school district?

[Huddleston] Very high. In fact, I put a pie together here and realized what I had done from the beginning. And yes, it's very important and actually I do a lot, I help during the parent-teacher conference with takes a lot of hours. I also interpret for the students. Sometimes if there is a student that is struggling with something I get pulled out and go into the classroom, sit down with the student, help them to understand or work through and do some activities. I also communicate with the parents. My main goal with this is that hopefully parents can be more engaged and involved in the child's education, which is very important for a child in the community. But I also interpret some materials and especially during school registration, which is a big time, a consuming time, is to be there for families that they might need me for anything. It is one of the biggest parts of the pie area where you can see basically, I go there at least a couple hours a day and it could be from the middle school to the elementary school to the high school. I work with students, I work with teachers, with parents and lately, especially I don't know if you had a chance to see it, but there's pictures when I am involved with the career academy for helping students during the career jobs and opportunities. Interviews, the kind of stuff we practice. So, I help them.

[Henderson] I'm wondering what the results are? So, Sid, you didn't say how many jobs were open when this all started. Is it dozens?

[Jones] Yeah, dozens. We did a survey out of Greene County Development Corporation, we went to every one of those and we asked them two questions. How many jobs do you have today? And how many will you have five years from today? Knowing the baby boomer generation is retiring. The answer was in kind of round numbers 110 or 120 jobs today, that is a culmination of those five largest employers, but 360 over a five-year timeframe. And that is combining their growth with what they see in their workforce today.

[Henderson] So, since you opened the center, how many of the jobs have been filled?

[Jones] I don't know the exact answer for that. Sara would probably have a better handle. She really communicates with them closely on a day-to-day basis.

[Henderson] So, what does the data show?

[Huddleston] Well, right now we have at least, I would say probably at least it all depends in different towns, but there is one industry that has hired a couple of people there and the latest one is another town that has hired and the word is that they're going to hire more people from the Middle East. And they are calling and reached out to our organization, especially with the language barrier and culture. So, that is a big thing. And I also interpret and translate for those companies as they need it, especially for one of the companies called Power Lift, they use a lot of our resources, interpreting and translating for the employees that they have during either their interviews or evaluations. So, they're looking to hire more people. So, part of my job is outreach to basically go out there and do whatever I can in media, through radio, through newspapers, to do job fairs, that kind of stuff, to be present, especially if you know Perry has a lot of people that lost their jobs. There is a great opportunity for me to go there and welcome people to our community. So yes, definitely. But it is increasing because now they have found that we are there and now if they need help, they can come to our organization for services and they are using it.

[Henderson] So, Chuck, we have three minutes left. Do you have a quick answer on how many of those 120 jobs have been filled in the past --?

[Offenburger] Quick, quick guesstimate is that we have something like 48 English language learners in the high school, which is a dramatic increase from three years ago. And so, if you add parents on for those children and you look at what we see in terms of the hospital and the industries, the incidental reports that we get, I would say that we've probably brought in about 100 adults into the community. We started out, Carlos Arguello used to say there were, when we started this program there were 300 Latino people n Greene County. So, that is growing. Keep in mind, one other thing is we've had farmers in Greene County use Latino workers as guest workers for 25 years. Deal's Orchard has done that, one of our iconic attractions. And so, I would say overall we probably have about 100 to 150 newcomers in the county since we started this program. They have come for various reasons and there's still opportunity, there's still room for many more and especially as we get growth going.

[Murphy] We've got just about a minute, 90 seconds left. Sara Huddleston, our director, I'll come back to you here. This effort is working against some very serious headwinds that Kay talked about at the top, the trend in recent years has been people moving away from areas like Greene County towards the urban centers. What is your -- what gives you reason for optimism that this program will -- you've talked about small success so far -- what makes you hopeful that that success will continue and grow?

[Huddleston] I base it on my experience back in Storm Lake when I started. I was it. I was the only Latina woman in town I believe at that time, it was in 1989 or 1990. And then when I left, there was people from all over the world and 40 languages. So, my belief is that I am in a town which is very lucky to have all of these industries in the middle, again, of nowhere. It is a very unique town, progressive town. I believe that me moving there, which I always tell the guys are you ready, I believe the people are going to follow. They tend to follow Sara for some reason. I don't know what I do, but every time I go someplace the number goes up fast. And I told the guys, are you ready? That was my first question because I knew, I'm not blind, I know that some people are not ready. I knew where I was going to go and I thought, I'm ready for a challenge and I'm going to do it. Based on my experience, the work that I had done, assimilated and integrated to Iowa, I love the work ethic of the state and how people are and I think they've got a great opportunity. Why not miss that great opportunity that we have in Greene County?

[Henderson] My challenge is to tell you all that we are out of time for this discussion. Thank you for joining us today.

[All] Thank you.

[Henderson] You can watch every episode of Iowa Press at iowapbs.org. For everyone here at Iowa PBS, thanks for watching today.

(music)

Funding for Iowa Press was provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

(music)

The Associated General Contractors of Iowa, the public's partner in building Iowa's highway, bridge and municipal utility infrastructure.

(music)

Across Iowa, hundreds of neighborhood banks strive to serve their communities, provide jobs and help local businesses. Iowa banks are proud to back the life you build. Learn more at iowabankers.com.