COMMON GROUND: LOOKING FOR LEADERS

"Everything in life is 'figureoutable'"

We should all be looking for leaders—not the ones whose names we know, but the new ones, hidden in plain sight. No matter where you live-- rural, urban or suburban—you’ll find problem-solvers quietly going about the everyday business of making other people’s lives better.

Scott Raecker, a long-time leader in Iowa, who heads the Ray Center at Drake University and works on civility issues, introduced me to Luke Lynch, and Luke introduced me to Sue Wilson and Patty Sneddon-Kisting. Getting to know them and their collaborative work to ensure food security in central Iowa should make you feel better about the future. If you look around, you’ll find other young leaders like them everywhere.

SETTING THE TABLE:

Committed leaders can turn lemons into lemonade! Such is the case with food security in Iowa. A very public conflict between the Food Banks of Iowa and DMARC food network (Des Moines Area Religious Council) in 2022 threatened the ability of senior families and people with disabilities to get the food they needed.

The dispute revealed cracks in the food security system, and United Way of Central Iowa and the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines worked with Scott Raecker and Jordan Vernoy, of See What I Mean Consulting, Cedar Falls, to facilitate community engagement. They created and challenged the Central Iowa Food Security Planning Committee to redefine their focus to address the root causes of poverty in central Iowa. Food security became one part of a much bigger challenge. The conflict was sidelined.

Scott said they realized that food banks were created for short-term crisis situations. Now that food insecurity is systemic, food banks are doing the best they can, but the system they used wasn’t working.

The committee, led by Luke Lynch of United Way of Central Iowa, working with the Des Moines Community Foundation, learned how the art of data gathering, including listening, can transform communities. The collaboration of 12 regional leaders resulted in a compact called Setting the Table that will guide their work in Polk, Dallas and Warren Counties for years to come.

LUKE LYNCH

“Luke’s an amazing talent in our community,” said Raecker. “I’ve observed him in meetings with people and passions. Through the work group they put a plan together moving from food insecurity to food security. That happened in 18-24 months!”

Luke explains that they dug through community data. They sent out surveys to people and organizations in the food space. They talked with neighbors in need in the three-county area to better understand the needs of the people they served.

They committed to four goals:

Offer a welcoming experience.

Develop and implement policy solutions.

Tell the story through data.

Build a collaborative community.

Luke says they succeeded because “we admitted that there were issues bigger than individual people. We can’t do this alone. We can’t rely on non-profits and faith-based organizations. It’s got to be everyone working together including business and government. We need partnerships and funding from them all.” More than 100 people representing education, farmers, government, universities, non-profits, business and stakeholders with “lived experience” came together to guide the work.

One of the most important aspects of the process was to “make sure that the voices of those not talking are heard.” The team spent considerable time listening to neighbors in need. By doing so they learned that 32% of the neighbors they serve have transportation issues. Luke emphasized that the community can’t be serious about food security without simultaneously addressing issues of transportation, reentry, mental health issues, childcare, and housing.

What is leadership? Luke says it’s “setting the table and committing to being accountable.” He acknowledges the work of those who have influenced him and the work he’s doing now: Jacquie Easley, Elisabeth Buck, Teree Caldwell-Johnson, Angie Dethlefs-Trettin and Mary Sellars.

He praises those out doing the work of implementing the compact in urban, suburban and rural spaces like Sue Wilson in Indianola and Patty Sneddon-Kisting in Urbandale.

SUE WILSON:

In small-town Indianola in rural Warren County, Sue Wilson seems to carry her work with her. When I enter the local coffee shop, Crimson Anchor, she’s assuring a friend that she’ll watch out for her son. She does a little business with the barista who also happens to be the pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church. We sit in a small side-room, which sometimes doubles as her office as Executive Director at WeLIFT Job Search Center a few blocks away.

She took the job at WeLIFT, because her board agreed that food insecurity is only one symptom of poverty and that their community needed to see the holistic approach to self-sufficiency.

She helped create a strategic plan that supports learning “independence for tomorrow.” Sue says her work includes “guiding and finding appropriate community and employment resources and tools to help people become economically self-sufficient.”

She is determined to serve the people of her rural county, which includes a small private college in a small town, that, with development, keeps growing closer to Des Moines. She is just as determined to engage with other leaders in the three-county area to better define needs and expand services. That’s why she serves on the Central Iowa Food Security Planning Committee led by Luke Lynch of United Way of Central Iowa.

Her community is her classroom, and she educates anyone who will listen about the causes of poverty and engages them in finding solutions. She explains that over 68% of the people they serve have had a severe brain injury from sports, domestic violence, meth or other accidents, which puts them at risk. Last year she teamed up with business owners and the Chamber of Commerce to discuss mental health issues. “What do we do when we know an employee isn’t doing okay? How do we let them know it’s okay to get resources?” She has involved landlords, the district attorney, probation officers, law enforcement, educators and ministers to help find stability for her neighbors in need.

At WeLIFT she has created the Community Hub Program, where community social services are available in one place several times a month. “A hub will only work if you give up the ‘it’s about me and my organization’, she says, “It’s about the greater good.”

Most of the people WeLIFT serve have jobs, but they have other issues that are barriers to keeping the job, like substance use disorder, or transportation issues. “Some people don’t know how to manage money, so we created a program to address those needs and hold them accountable for their choices,” says Sue.

Through the partnership with United Way, she received a grant to hire a “community navigator”. Neighbors in need meet regularly with the navigator to complete applications, to learn accountability and financial literacy. “We have a woman living in a tent going to full-time work, but we still need to put tires on her car,”says Sue. “She’s not 100% self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency doesn’t happen in a month. We found her a home to rent, and now she’s driving for Upland Transportation, and attending financial classes.

“So, what is leadership?” I ask. “It starts with knowing who your support is, knowing the resources around you,” says Sue. “No one organization can solve this, but we can work together. If you invest in a process, it may or may not get done, but if you invest in the right group of people and they are working together for the greater good, for common ground, it will happen. So many brains and leadership styles together—that’s powerful.”

PATTY SNEDDON-KISTING:

On Fridays the Urbandale Food Pantry is closed, but Patty Sneddon-Kisting is accepting bags of groceries from a drive-up donor. Inside employees are shelving items in a new addition to the existing building. Patty poses with a photo gallery of her volunteers, her most precious asset.

She’s no stranger to the issues facing the neighbors in need she serves. She’s been self-sufficient since the age of 15.

For 20 years she has worked for non-profits serving children and families. After getting her Master’s degree in Health and Human Services Non-profit Governance, she was hired in September 2019 to be Executive Director of the Urbandale Food Pantry, a border food pantry, which means it serves anyone who needs food, not just citizens of Urbandale. Then the Pandemic changed everything, and afterwards, when federal resources dried up, the need for food grew.

In 2022 they were serving 847 families. In 2024 they were serving over 1900. Their space in a mall wasn’t sufficient, so Patty found an empty building in the same neighborhood. In the spring of 2024, she did a feasibility study, waged a capital campaign, and by April of 2025 moved into a renovated, and expanded facility that still smells of fresh paint.

During her moving and renovation project, she also served on the Central Iowa Food Security Planning Committee with Luke, Sue, and other regional leaders. The experience emphasized the importance of partners.

The capital campaign to renovate and expand the building, gave her the chance to redefine food insecurity for the community. “One of the things I like best is changing the narrative,” she explains. “It’s not just about food. It’s about the impossible decisions families have to make.” Because the food is flexible and rent and utilities are not, families skimp on food to save money for other necessities.

In her renovated building, she can offer neighbors in need two services: a full-month’s shopping--the staples--and “any-time shopping” which offers “food rescue” items to meets immediate hunger needs.

Aligning with the work of Setting the Table, she, too, has created a hub at the pantry in partnership with Broadlawns Hospital which allows parents to access services from WIC (Women, Infants and Children) at the pantry. Project Iowa, which offers job training Servies and Meals on Wheels also joined the hub. So many more of their neighbors in need are seniors. Last month they served 800, twice as many as this time last year. Now when neighbors come to the pantry, there is a waiting room, so they don’t have to stand in a line outside. Families come for one thing, and they leave with multiple services.

What does leadership mean for Patty? “It’s like my life motto: how can we decrease the barriers for people to jump through? I like being a conduit of resources and connecting people. That’s how we can find pathways out of poverty. Everything in life is “figureoutable,” she says. “Is that a word?”

It is now. That new word should give us confidence that the future is in good hands, the hands of Luke, Sue and Patty and the other leaders who created the food security compact for Central Iowa.

If that’s the attitude of newer, younger leaders in communities across our country, then I say let’s quit despairing and figure out how to help.