As Jesus Fed the Masses, ‘Community Philanthropist’ Prays for Same from Hunger Challenge

Motivated around Christmas-time a few years ago by a national news story about ordinary people stepping up to feed growing numbers of hungry and homeless Americans, Doug Woods reached into his wallet and made a donation to the local food pantry network.

Over the years, the retired West Des Moines police officer increased his gift in what became a holiday tradition. Increasingly he became aware that the 13,000 Polk and Dallas County families served annually by the Des Moines Area Religious Council’s Move the Food safety net program don’t suddenly stop being hungry when the holiday giving season is over.

In fact, food supplies are historically at their lowest in early spring. So Woods worked with DMARC to create what is being called the Douglas M. Woods Hunger Challenge. He has offered to match 50 cents for each $1 raised, up to $20,000 in donations.

That means a $10 gift becomes a $15 gift and a $50 gift become $75, and so on, until direct contributions and Woods' match add up to $30,000 – which will buy enough groceries for 40,000 meals.

“That will make a huge difference” in Move the Food's ability to serve an increasing population, said DMARC Development Director Kristine Frakes.

But even at that, she said, the gift will only extend food supplies for two weeks. Through its network of 13 food pantries across the Des Moines metro area, Frakes said, DMARC supplies groceries to provide 20,000 to 25,0000 meals per week.

That’s what makes generosity such as Woods’ so important, she said.

With more resources, food pantries are able to serve more Polk County residents. DMARC opened two new pantries in the metro in the past year and four since 2009, thinking expanding the network would relieve some of the pressure on other sites.

“We simply identified another population,” Frakes said. “Those new pantries had 80 percent new population. There’s a lot of room to grow.”

People who need food assistance often have other access problems, such as those caused by transportation and mobility issues.

In 2012, DMARC assisted more than 33,000 people in the metro – half of whom were children and youth – and is on track to assist more this year.

Hunger may be “invisible” in Iowa – that is, difficult to see because children aren’t running around with distended bellies – but it’s a persistent problem. Local statistics show food pantry consumers are increasingly the working poor.

In 2012:

• 68 percent of employed food pantry consumers earn $8 per hour or less and just 7 percent earn $10 per hour or more
• 87 percent have monthly household income of $1,500 or less ($18,000/year)
• 1,540 households (4,300 people) borrow money to pay their rent/mortgage
• 2,860 households (8,000 people) will need to move to cheaper housing due to insufficient household resources
• More than 13,000 families were provided emergency food, rent, utility and child-care assistance. Each month, about 3,800 families received services through DMARC programs.
• The food equivalent of more than 1.2 million emergency meals was distributed.
• 13 pantry sites served over 32,000 individuals; more than 15,000 were children and youth.
• About 300 people received assistance with rent, mortgage, utility bills and child care.

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“This is a Local Problem”

Woods made a gradual transition from a retired cop living on a pension to a “community philanthropist” – a label he would just as soon eschew, if not for the example it provides to hopefully inspire others to give.

“Doug’s actions have an opportunity to lift up the cause,” Frakes said. “It creates a visibility that this is a local problem.”

When Woods gave at Christmas that first year, he was flooded with poignant memories from his childhood.

“I was about 10 and a picky eater,” Woods, now 67, recalled, “and I remember my dad telling me about children in Europe who weren’t getting enough to eat.”

To drive home the point, his dad gathered up several sacks of groceries, took him in tow and they delivered them to members of the paternal family, who lived in a primitive southern Iowa farmhouse with “maybe three or four pieces” of furniture, bare floors and a wood-burning stove.

Reading “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck’s graphic portrayal of “people were dying of malnutrition every day – in this country,” Woods said, heightened his awareness.

“It should be required reading,” he said of the novel set during the Great Depression.

Looking back, “all of that together got me started thinking and wondering what I could do,” he said.

So on a winter day three years ago, Woods visited the food pantry at West Des Moines Human Services intent on making a donation. If he contributed through the Move the Food warehouse program, his donation would feed more people  – a modern deference to the miracle of The Feeding of the Five Thousand.

For example, a $1 donation allows DMARC to obtain two to six times as much food at wholesale prices as the same amount would buy at retail prices, Frakes said.

Woods, who attends the New Hope Assembly of God Church in Urbandale, found the promise in the Bible a couple of years ago when he had what he called a “spiritual awakening.”

He said his call to service was clearly spelled out in 2 Corinthians 9:10: “Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness.”

“It speaks of giving to the poor and the needy,” Woods said. “You are expected to give 10 percent of your income, so that is what I have tried to do for the last two years.

“I get a great deal of fulfillment in giving to help the less fortunate. It’s like the old adage: The more I give, the more I receive.”

That’s in the Bible, too, he said, his blue eyes twinkling.

How to Give to the Hunger Challenge

Through April, donations to the DMARC Food Pantry Network that are noted as “Challenge Hunger” gifts will be matched 50 cents for every dollar, up to a total of $20,000 given. As part of the Challenge,$10 becomes $15, $50 equals $75, and so on. During the “Challenge Hunger” campaign, a $10 gift will help DMARC provide 20 meals for a hungry child.

Donate online or mail your “Challenge Hunger” donation to:  DMARC, 3816 36th Street, Suite 202, Des Moines IA 50310. Phone donations are also welcome at (515) 277-6969.

The Des Moines Area Religious Council is an interfaith organization with a core membership of about 140 congregations from four faith traditions.