A Family's Silent Partner

WINTERSET – Many topics were discussed in the community room at the Sports Page bar and grill in Winterset but one above all seemed to stir up the passions of the more than 25 attendees during the Thrive Iowa of Warren and Madison County asset mapping event. 

The topic raised was food. Specifically the amount of food items that are tossed at grocery and convenience stores due to exceeded shelf life or damaged packaging. While state and federal regulations place restrictions on the shelflife of some foodstuffs sold, many at the meeting raised a point that there is still value in items that grocery and convenience stores toss.

Meanwhile, families in their own communities go hungry.

A passionate conversation about food recovery and distribution took place. Could food pantries get involved? Does anyone have extra storage coolers to hold recovered items? Who needs to be a part of this conversation? Day old bread and ugly vegetables are still edible.

These are the conversations that excite Carlos Garbutt. 

Garbutt, a community success specialist at Arkansas-based nonprofit Restore Hope, is optimistic that the passions in the conversations being held during the asset mapping event will yield positive results for families in need in the communities of Madison County. 

"People are willing to work together, and that's always exciting," Garbutt said. 

Garbutt is no stranger to the nonprofit sector. Having worked as the Community Impact Director at the United Way of Northwest Arkansas and as the Benton County coordinator for the 100 Families initiative, and now in his current role as a success specialist at Restore Hope, Garbutt has helped countless families make it out of crisis. 

You may not have heard of him, and he prefers it stay that way because a family's success story is not about him or any one resource provider.

The key to success in this line of work is a team of selfless individuals. Taking credit has no redeemable value to the families served. 

"Working together is a lot more effective than trying to do everything on your own," Garbutt said. "As long as the families are able to get the help, it really doesn't matter who is providing the service."

Garbutt has been visiting Iowa throughout the fall to be more hands-on with the implementation of the Thrive Iowa initiative as more sites prepare to launch. Asset mapping is the second step before a new site launches.

Asset mapping is a way of helping resource providers in the community "identify what resources are here and find out which ones we might need to work creatively to stand up," Garbutt said.

In his short time in central Iowa, Garbutt said he's learned that the people in the communities of Madison County are passionate individuals with helpful hearts that are willing to work together.

"In the discussions that we were hearing around the room, there were several issues that people were asking 'how do we do this?'" Garbutt said, adding that once suggestions started being made connections soon followed. 

"That is exciting because it shows that this is the way we're going to move forward in Madison County.