- Wheelan-Pressley Funeral home and Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT, has been serving quad city families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

- At IHMVCU, we've always been here for you.

You are, and always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial and physical health.

And we are here.

IHMVCU is a proud supporter of WQPT.

- The food you eat and the food you don't.

It's the latter that interests one group, and the 2022 elections are upon us.

What election officials in Iowa say, they still need in the cities.

(upbeat music) It might be one of the most closely scrutinized elections in American history.

In states like Iowa, both liberals and conservatives will keep a close eye on who votes and who doesn't during the primary and November's general election.

More on that in a moment.

But first, stop throwing out food!

Not necessarily at your house, though that would help as well.

But an organization in the cities is trying to find new uses for the food that might be thrown out by restaurants and grocery stores, and that law that makes it easier than ever to keep that food from becoming trash.

We talked with the board director, Christina McDonough about the food rescue partnership in the quad cities and the national attention it's receiving.

You know, what I love is your motto.

It's feeding people, not landfills.

That's really the way we should be looking at this.

- Absolutely.

We completely agree.

- So tell me, what has the food rescue partnership done since it was first formed almost 10 years ago, nine years ago, In fact?

- Yeah, it's been an impressive growth since we first got established in 2013.

We have really grown.

A lot of our members are food rescues.

So we have about 20 local food establishments in the quad cities that are donating their extra food to the non-profit, hunger relief agencies throughout the community.

And we're really working hard to spread awareness and the education component of donating your food.

- Well, this was a real novel idea.

I remember when it was introduced in 2013, it just totally made sense that instead of just throwing food away, perfectly good food, that you would find a use for it.

What was the acceptance level and what is it right now?

- Yeah, so I really think that the community, and especially those food rescue partnership stakeholders, we were all on the same page where it was just one of those aha moments.

We realized that at a national level, 40% of food that's produced in the United States does not get consumed and therefore it's wasted.

And when you're looking at our local data in Scott County, approximately 8.9% of our residents in Scott County are food insecure.

And in Rock Island County residents are approximately 10.9% food insecure.

So, both problems can be solved with the same solution.

If you have extra food at the end of your restaurant shift or the grocery store, why not donate that and do good with it in our very own quad cities community?

- Now you have seen some restaurants and some food service agencies really buy into the program.

Why would others be hesitant?

- So, one of the biggest concerns that we see when we're approaching different food establishments is they are concerned about liability.

So restaurants, grocery stores, anybody that's handling food works really hard to make sure that it remains safea and the integrity is wonderful throughout the entire process.

And a lot of them are going through in depth training.

They have their license through the health departments in their community.

And so, they have that little uneasiness of donating the food and what's to happen once it's out of their professional handling.

And so what the food rescue partnership does is really works on providing education and awareness.

That first off there's a good Samaritan food donation act it's national, but both the states of Iowa and Illinois have enacted it.

So.

if you're donating your food as a professional establishment, with a license, to a nonprofit hunger relief agency, you're not gonna get in trouble.

There's no civil or criminal liability.

And then the next component is, a lot of these nonprofit hunger relief agencies, obviously they wanna keep the food safe and healthy for those that are in need.

And so they are also going through are very similar trainings that serve safe handlers are familiar with.

So that's, that's really our top priority.

Getting that education out in the community.

- Cause correct me, correct me if I'm wrong.

For the most case, you know, when people are doing food drives or when you think of a food pantries, you always hear non-perishable food products, basically, you know, canned goods and things like that.

This is almost much different.

This is oftentimes prepared food, is it not?

- Yes, exactly.

And so the food rescue partnership is happy to make connections for whatever type of food a business has.

So really an easy way to think about it is, do you have the ingredients to make a lasagna?

Or do you have a lasagna that's fully prepared and ready to eat?

And depending on what you have for your food, and also how much of it in our community, it may go to River Bend Food Bank.

They're really looking at getting those large donations that are gonna take a semi-truck and forklift to move large pallets of food.

If you're looking at a food pantry that a lot of us see in churches, or even our malls now have them, that's, you know, the items that you typically get off a grocery store shelf.

But then, there is that sweet spot where restaurants can donate their prepared food, and a lot of those meal sites like to have the food.

So Kings Harvest, Cafe On Vine, there's a lot of other non-profits that'll take that prepared meal and serve it to their community.

- And I know that you're most proud cause this is the third year that you you've gotten federal recognition for what is going on in the quad cities.

And that really is quite an honor.

So that those people are thinking, well, this is an odd program.

This really shows that it's not an odd program at all.

- Yeah, so we actually joined the EPA food recovery challenge in 2016.

And we had always, throughout the entire process of the food rescue partnership, followed their hierarchy.

And one of the biggest things is providing education that if you have 10 or 20 pounds of extra food at the end of every day, you should reduce your inventory, and not order that 10 to 20 pounds.

That really helps with the source reduction, but, but you're only going to get it so accurate every day.

And, so, looking at their hierarchy, they provide alternatives.

So feeding people is next, animal feed, followed by composting, or anaerobic digestion.

And then last on their hierarchy, is sending food to the landfill.

So this is the third time that the food rescue partnership has earned recognition from the EPA, and we are just honored that our local coalition is being recognized at a regional and now a national level.

It's a huge accomplishment for all of our volunteers.

- Explain to me what the pandemic, COVID, I mean we're now entering the third year of COVID.

Did it put a greater strain or a greater amount of requests for your services?

- So, for the food rescue partnership, it was a really great opportunity for us because we had two very dedicated chefs in our community that reached out to their other contacts in the professional food world and said, look, we have in person dining suspended right before the lunch shift and what can we do to make sure that the food is not wasted and it gets to those in our community.

And so we were able in one week to rescue 4,400 pounds of food, and it took a lot of great teamwork and we saw so much support from the community, and really now it's capitalizing on that excitement.

And how do you keep the enthusiasm going and letting people know that they can continue to donate food and feel good about their work in the community?

- I think it is an interesting concept, just calling it food rescue makes it interesting.

And Christina, you have, you have embraced this personally.

I mean, it's a passion of yours cause we're talking about how businesses like restaurants can help, but also individuals as well.

- Absolutely.

And so there's a lot that, you know, even if, you don't work at a restaurant or a grocery store that you can do at home, right?

So, you know, same thing.

Taking inventory before you go grocery shopping and sticking to that list of what it is that you need to get when you're preparing food.

Make sure that after you're done, if you have leftovers, you're storing it properly so there's obviously you can put it in the freezer to save down the road.

you can take it for leftovers the next day at work.

And at home, one of the things that my kids love doing is having leftover night.

And so once a week, if not, sometimes more, depending on how much cooking we've done, we'll pull out all the food in the fridge and we'll let them pick what they wanna put on their plate.

And we really don't have any goals for 'em cause the food's not being wasted.

- What is the next big goal then for the partnership, as far as the quad city community is concerned because if you think about it, I mean Americans are big consumers and big wasters.

You're almost having to change the mindset of not only restaurants, but also, you know, the diners themselves.

- Yes.

So really doing everything that we can in our power to continue to get the word out there.

For us, we've really found a lot of good momentum with our members of food rescue programs.

So those are the food establishments that are already doing good in the community like Popcorn Charlie donates food, Happy Joe's on Locust Street donates food, A Village Corner Deli.

And what they're doing is setting the example.

And so we're recognizing them with certificates and window clings, putting information on our website and Facebook page and, and hopefully that's sparking some healthy competition, right?

Then if you find out one restaurant's donating food, you know that you can do it as well.

- But as you said earlier, 40% of food in America generally goes not consumed.

I mean it either gets thrown away.

Well I guess it does.

That's the only thing is it gets thrown away or disposed of in some, in some way.

I mean that could make a huge difference in our communities.

- Absolutely.

And really it's one of those things that there's, there's two problems.

We're throwing away too much food, and there are people in our community that they don't know where their next meal's coming from.

So the, the solution is the same across the board.

Don't throw that food away, make sure you're getting it donated to those non-profit hunger relief agencies in our community and, and in any community.

- Christina McDonough with the food rescue partnership in the quad cities.

In a moment, making sure Iowa's elections are safe.

It starts with those at the precincts.

But first, getting out and about, Laura Adams has some great ideas for you, as we start to put winter in our rear-view mirror.

- This is Out & About for February 25th through March 3rd.

Check out the QC Empowerment Network's seventh annual Black Business Expo and health fair at South Park Mall on the 26th, or see the Jeff Dunham seriously tour at the TaxSlayer Center also on the 26th.

Tomfoolery on Tremont at Renwick Mansion features Kyle Kinane on the 27th at 7:00, and The Russian Ballet Theatre present a breathtaking production of Swan Lake at the Adler Theatre on March 1st.

BSA troop 109 host a Chili Cook-off the 26th from 5:00 to 7:00 at Culeman's Hall, and it's Figge Family Day, the 26th from 10:00 to 1:00.

On stage, The Odd Couple by Neil Simon finishes their run at Playcrafters Barn Theatre on the 27th.

The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical closes on the 27th.

And at the Redstone Room, Martin Sexton performs March 2nd at 7:30.

Barron Ryan presents a free performance at Hotel Blackhawk the 25th at 5:00.

Galvin Fine Arts Center at St. Ambrose is the location for a free concert the 25th at 7:30.

The annual, shockingly modern saxophone festival takes the stage at Bergendoff Hall of fine arts the 26th from 10:00 to 8:30.

While Quad Cities Music Guild holds auditions for their summer 2022 productions on the 26th, starting at 11:30 AM.

And the Black Box Theatre opens the comedy drama, The Revolutionist by Lauren Gunderson about four women during the French Revolution.

For more information, visit WQPT.org - Thank you, Laura.

The 2022 elections are already upon us in so many different ways.

Well before the November elections there'll be summer primaries in both Iowa, Illinois.

And in Iowa, it will be a test of the major changes lawmakers made last year in the way elections are run starting this year.

Absentee ballots will be treated differently, the voting calendar will be shorter, and the state will need more poll workers at a time when some groups say they'll be watching those precincts closer than ever.

We talked with Iowa Secretary of State, Paul Pate, about the state of the state of Iowa elections.

You were very proud of 2020.

Does it, does it, is it somewhat disheartening when you hear people that don't believe the election was fair in Iowa?

- Well, people are gonna always place some concerns and it's their right.

But I think the majority of Iowans clearly were satisfied with the election re results.

And my job is just to keep giving them the facts, making sure they understand how we do it in Iowa, and I have confidence.

Iowans get it.

That's why we have record voter turnouts, and we'll keep on that same path.

- But what what's what's happened since 2020 has been remarkable, Iowa legislature has enacted new laws and we've seen, I, I, I take it to Scott County where the auditor resigned saying that she just faced too many threats, she and her staff.

2020 ended up being kind of ugly after the election.

- Well, there, there, there was some backlash.

Clearly.

I won't split hairs, but the auditor in, in, in Scott county was retiring well before the election.

She, she may have said that contributed to why she was thinking about it, but I think the, the results of what we saw in this election is that Iowans got a fair, open election.

They, they believe the results.

And there are those though who, clearly, wanna see even more done.

But I just wanna remind them all the great things we have got in place.

And one of them is poll workers.

The fact that these are your friends and your neighbors, these are bipartisan teams.

These are the folks who are there every step of the way to make sure that your best interests and, and the elections are run properly, are being conducted.

And, and we're asking for a little more help on that front.

- You are looking for poll workers for the upcoming elections.

It's been difficult before 2020.

Is it more difficult now?

- Well, actually it's starting to be a little easier, in some ways.

I think what COVID brought on was a, a more of a greater awareness that we need these folks on the, on the front line.

And we've been doing a lot of special recruiting since then, and we've been able to fill a lot of those spots and, and I'm hoping we'll even fill in more.

Because if voter participation keeps going up, we need more people at the polls to help.

We wanna make sure that it's a smooth process.

And we also wanna have some fallback if you will, or reserves.

So, you know, we have 10,000 plus poll workers right now, and we wanna see us gets the $12,000, 12,000 mark, just to have that, that extra help.

And again, these are your neighbors.

This is I call them our neighborhood heroes because they're stepping up and, and that's what guarantees you, the kind of integrity you want on our elections.

- Well, as you know, elections are very partisan.

Election day is somewhat not so much, especially at the polls.

Yet, it sounds like you're hearing this groundswell, at least in the Republican party, to get more partisan people involved in the actual election day administration.

- Well, again, the political parties have a role, and I respect that.

My role is to be the referee.

We don't get the root for one team over the other, and that's the, how the poll workers work.

That's why we balance it between Republican and Democrats.

And these are folks that are right in your own neighborhood, as I've said, and these are people I think you can trust, because again, these are your peers.

And it helps lend to the, the whole concept that we want transparency in our elections.

We wanna make sure people see the process and have confidence in the results.

And I think we're making good progress on that, And we wanna keep building on it.

- Are you worried about security in future elections?

Cause you do see this kind of groundswell of anger towards the vote, and the vote count, that people that may not believe that it's being done fairly.

You believe it's being done fairly, your poll workers believe to being done fairly.

Yet, there could be confrontations at the polls.

- Well, we work very hard with our county auditors, and the poll workers, to give them the kind of training so they can deal with any type of situation, whether it might be a conflict of, of someone's concern, how elections being run or whether it's a natural disaster.

We make sure they have those.

We partner with law enforcement.

We make sure we have a safe environment.

I, I wanna be very careful about how we look at the national scene and, and even within the national scene, you may have some hot spots here and there, but I think when you look at the vast majority of all of our polling insights around the country, particularly here in Iowa, we run pretty safe, calm, cool collective elections.

And COVID added a few tensions, if you will, because we were having to do some distancing and we were trying to come up with ways to be able to do it in a safe way, but also give everybody their opportunity to vote.

And I think we did a pretty good job at that.

And we're gonna look forward to going into 2022 and doing even more.

- I remember talking to you after the 2020 election, how proud you were on the count, how proud you were on the effectiveness at each of the polls.

And yet, the Iowa legislature made changes.

Do you think those changes were needed?

- Well, the legislature, I like to think, at least responds to what constituents are asking for.

And a lot of what they responded to wasn't as much of the technical side in saying, you know, count 'em this way or move a form this way.

They were talking about some of the expectations, you know?

The voters were saying, we wanna know what the results aren't election night.

They had some concerns about it, you know, dragging out and as you drag it out, it is up to more concern about anybody manipulating anything.

So that puts more pressure on us, to make sure we've got poll workers, so we can get those counts done on election night.

And, but I have confidence we can get it done.

And again, Iowas get it.

We really do.

And the vast majority really understand and are participating.

- But what you've really found is people that don't necessarily wanna vote election day.

1 million of the 1.7 election ballots were absentee ballots in Iowa.

A vast majority of people wanted to vote and not come into the voting booth.

You could say it is COVID but once that happens, don't you think more Iowans, and more people all across America, are just, they want a more convenient way to vote rather than actually traveling to the polls.

- Well, I think we are a society now that wants more options.

And that's what we see with the early voting.

Most certainly.

It's the challenge is, it's kinda like a restaurant with a menu.

You have a lot of things on it and you might wanna add a few new dishes that are, are, are very appealing and very good, but most the folks still don't wanna give up anything else on the menu.

They, they would like the idea of having choices and clearly that's something we have to balance and we're gonna keep doing that.

We'll we'll make sure out there I expect in 2022, another record turnout.

And some of that may be the early voting.

It might be shifting back to more traditional voting that's yet to be, to be determined if you will, but we clearly wanna make sure we are responding to what the folks are asking for and, and doing it in such a way that we can also assure the integrity.

- Early voting was about 29 days in, in 2020.

And now it's been cut to 20 days.

Do you see that as having a, an impact in the upcoming election, especially in 2024?

- Well, it's a challenge for us, the administrators.

Our job is to make sure you're educated to what the details are.

What are the deadlines?

There are always deadlines at elections.

And the better job we do in making sure they know what they are.

I'm, I'm more confident, confident that they'll get it done.

The window we have right now is still a much more generous window than most states in the country have.

And I think it is still manageable, but it clearly is, it means we have to be on our A game, as election officials, to get that information in the hand of voters.

- One of the other things is that voting is gonna end earlier, 8:00 PM as opposed to 9:00 PM.

I know television stations across the state are happy to hear that.

Is that another effort, perhaps, to get the vote totals in by the end of the night?

- Well, it's a big part of it, but you know, I've heard for 20 years, literally 20 years county auditors have appealed to the legislature because they weren't seeing the last hour of the evening as a big window or an hour that people are coming in to vote.

And clearly with all the people voting early, they've seen that same trend even get less.

I mean, there's not that many people voting in the eight to nine o'clock period.

And when you're trying to recruit poll workers and you're trying to get results done on election night to satisfy voters.

You could use that hour being the, doing the totalling, as you said, but also it allows us to move our poll workers into a different mode, if you will, rather than having to be sitting at a polling site for the last, you know, those two or three people who come in when you ask them, they're willing to come in an hour earlier.

So the point was Democrat and Republican auditors were asking for this change.

The legislature gave it to 'em and I think they're getting a bit of a backlash which they don't deserve.

The legislature was just doing what auditors were asking them to do.

- When you take a look at the elections and you take a look at 2020 and whether they were fair and done correctly in Iowa, the biggest way of testing it is when it's challenged.

And you look at the second congressional district where it came down to six vote difference between Marianette Miller- Meeks and Rita Hart and, and the election really didn't change that much.

I mean, your, your poll workers and your counties were really put to the test.

Was that satisfying to not see a major change in that election, just from an administrative standpoint?

- Well, most certainly I, it was, was a lot of work, but you know, elections are important.

So there is gonna be some work in it.

And when you're talking about 25 counties that you're going through doing these hand counts, that is very intense.

And I was very pleased with how it came out and, you know, field saying it's like making sausage, you really don't wanna watch the process sometimes, but the product to the end is pretty good.

You know, there were some bumps we encountered and, and we're gonna improve on some of those.

I've offered some technical suggestions this year to the legislature, to make it a little smoother the next time.

I, frankly, hope we don't have a next time, but if you do, we wanna make sure we're ready for it.

But I think the results speak for themselves.

We didn't see major lawsuits.

We, we were able to bring both candidates into the room and work through it all and they had their people there.

And I think the results speak well for how Iowa runs elections.

- And then looks for let's look forward.

You do say that you do need poll workers.

What type of people are you looking for right now?

- We're looking for all, all, all walks.

Typically our, our demo, our, our look right now, if you were to kind of profile, they're over 60 year olds.

We wanna bring in some of, you know, more younger people.

Of course we wanna bring in people, different ethnic backgrounds and genders, different parts of the state.

We, we really want to tune in on the, the rural areas because they have a bigger challenge.

Sometimes they're getting poll workers than the urban centers too just based on populations.

We are seeing a big uptick of 18 to 25 year olds voting, record numbers.

So we should have more poll workers of that age in our poll worker network, if you will.

So we're reaching out to all of them and, and it's again, not a real challenging thing in the sense that we're not going to make, you have to go in and study for a PhD on it, but it is a big responsibility.

You're the eyes and ears.

You're the person who's there at the polling site.

You're there to help them make sure they're at the right polling site.

You're there to help them make sure they're registered, of course.

Get 'em their ballots, make sure that ballot gets processed properly and answer some questions for 'em.

But you are really the eyes and ears and, and the person out there for, for Iowans at the polling site.

And they can go to our site pollworker.iowa.gov and sign up.

We'll get 'em some more information, the county auditors will work with them on it, a little bit of training, and you get paid for it.

It's not maybe huge amount, but it is stipend.

And it's a way to thank you for being a part of our elections.

- I know that since the election way back in 2020, there's been major changes as far as, as security is concerned.

Cyber security of voting methods were updated greatly.

That almost, well it is it's it's it's 24 years ago that some of this work started.

Elections are being done much differently now than back then.

- Well, they have, I mean, I, I was Secretary of State back in '94 to '98 and then I came back here and, and I, in the recent years.

And technology has advanced dramatically.

We do have more, more of a challenge on the cyber side and we've met it head on.

We, we've put teams out there, both in my office, we're partnering up with the FBI and the Homeland Security and many other agencies in private sector, as well, to have all those protections in.

And we've made sure that we've got that same protection given to our counties.

My office has really put a strong effort on getting them those resources.

So we're protected from, from every component, if you will, of an election.

And let's not forget, we have some of the most basic security methods.

Again, the poll workers.

They are a big part of it.

And you couple that with paper ballots, and voter ID and, and our election audits.

I think we've got a nice well-rounded package to assure islands of the integrity.

And so they know when those results come in, that they're gonna be the accurate ones.

- Iowa Secretary of State, Paul Pate.

On the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device, and streaming on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us as we talk about the issues on the cities.

(soothing music) - Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home and Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT, has been serving quad city families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or Memorial service.

- At IHMVCU, we've always been here for you.

You are, and always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial and physical health.

And we are here.

IHMVCU is a proud supporter of WQPT.