The floodwaters continued to recede in Iowa this week, revealing plenty of destruction, but also some old-fashioned neighborliness â€" with a digital twist.
Dan Wardell, who appears on Iowa Public Television as Dantastic, host of the IPTV Kids Clubhouse, has spent the past few weeks visiting with children from flood-damaged communities and blogging about it.
"The kids come up to me and say, 'We're staying at Grandma and Grandpa's right now. We can't get to our house,'" Dan says. "They don't have homes. They don't have their toys. … For me it's an honor to do what I do."
Dan is visiting victims of the flooding as part of his Reading Road Trip, an IPTV-sponsored campaign to promote childhood literacy in 60 cities across the state.
At each stop, Dan visits the local library to read to kids, sometimes drawing as many as 550 parents and children. more
