The Food of Love It takes a chorus of volunteers to orchestrate the work of the 40-year-old Free Lunch Program. BY ADAM WITTE
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n open door, a full plate, no questions asked. It’s a simple, humble mission, but for everyone involved with the Free Lunch Program (FLP), from the diners to the directors, it is less about charity than collaboration, enriching the life of both server and guest. This is a truth strongly felt by Diane Platte, one of FLP’s two directors. “It’s one of the best parts of the job: to be around so many different people, all with such great intentions and good will.” Six days a week, 52 weeks a year, Platte conducts a volunteer chorus of nearly 1,000 individuals from dozens of local church congregations, business organizations and civic groups to perform something of a rhapsody in food: feeding more than 100 people in our community, every day, for free. “We just negotiate and navigate and make it all work.” Iowa City’s Free Lunch Program began one Lenten season nearly 40 years ago with parishioners from St. Mary’s and St. Thomas More who sought to embrace the acts of mercy Jesus describes in the Book of Matthew: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink.” Therapists from the Abbe Center for Community Mental Health provided insight into what the community lacked: a free noontime meal to those in need. The Knights of Columbus offered the use of their building and the fledgling FLP began serving once a month in January 1983. Six people attended. The following month, that number doubled, then again, and by 1989, with support from the United Way, FLP moved to the basement of the Wesley Center, where they could offer a free lunch six days a week to anyone in need. In 2011, the Crisis Center of Johnson County, 56
BREAD & BUTTER 2022
Free Lunch Program co-directors Kai Kiser and Diane Platte Zak Neumann / Little Village
“I was always raised feeling very much like food was love, that food was community. I hope people feel that here.” ––Kai Kiser, co-director, Free Lunch Program the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Johnson County, the Domestic Violence Intervention Program and FLP began work to bring their four organizations under one roof, and a fully-renovated building was dedicated in 2014. “I was always raised feeling very much like food was love, that food was community. I hope people feel that here,” said Kai Kiser, Platte’s co-director. It is something the FLP volunteers and every good chef or home cook understands: the joy and satisfaction which comes from nourishing someone else. It’s also the beating heart which Kiser and Platte share with the other volunteer organizations who make up Iowa City’s ad hoc collection of culinary crusaders to ensure that every member of this community has access to a healthy meal, every day, free of charge. FLP offers lunch Monday through Saturday, while the Salvation Army just across the street on South Gilbert Court provides a free evening meal Monday through Friday. The Catholic Worker House on Sycamore Street offers a Saturday evening meal and a Sunday meal at noon. The Agape Cafe, located in Old Brick on the University of Iowa campus, provides a free breakfast each Wednesday morning. “These congregations came together to fill the gap—literally just community members seeing work that needed to be done and doing it,” Kiser said. If Platte is the conductor of the chorus of volunteers, Kiser is the producer of the show, collaborating with funding organizations and
stakeholders like the City of Iowa City, Johnson County, the United Way and CommUnity Foundation to identify and meet the needs of FLP and their guests. “One thing people don’t realize about nonprofit food services is that we have avenues for purchasing that are not available to the general public,” said Kiser, who, in less than a year at FLP, has learned quite a lot about how to stretch the nonprofit dollar. “A food bank would be able to buy a giant pallet of canned goods for a fraction of the cost you can get them for at the grocery store, so financial contributions really, really do go a long way for an organization like this.” Additional support comes in the form of local produce from Table to Table and canned goods and meat from the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program (HACAP), but most of the food served to guests is purchased and prepared by the volunteer groups themselves. Kiser was not even born when FLP served its first free lunch, but they are no stranger to the social services scene in Iowa City. A native of Los Angeles, Kiser moved with their fiancee to Iowa City in 2015 to attend the university. They almost immediately got involved in nonprofit work as a youth development specialist at United Action for Youth, as a board member for Girls Rock! Iowa City and Pride Rock Iowa City, and, beginning in July 2021, as director of administrative operations at FLP. When Platte and her husband Nathan made Iowa City their home, they brought their passion for music and community with them.
