DES MOINES, Iowa — After nine years of working together, United Way of Central Iowa has decided not to renew a $50,000 grant to local food rescue group Eat Greater Des Moines following what United Way says were repeated incidents of poor staff behavior.
When Eat Greater Des Moines co-founder Aubrey Alvarez found out her organization would not receive the grant, she was initially angry.
"It's frustrating, because it really felt like it was retaliatory. I spoke out after one of their events about donating the extra food," Alvarez said.
Alvarez recalled the two groups having a misunderstanding after an event that took place at Prairie Meadows. Alvarez said she and her team wanted to give away some of the excess food.
"[I said] 'This food is safe, it will be refrigerated, it will be given away for free and eaten that evening,' but they did not let the food leave," Alvarez said.
After Alvarez spoke out about this incident, she said she received pushback.
"Shortly after that happened, my board chair was contacted," Alvarez said. "And they were told that we were no longer going to be a funded partner because they felt that my behavior was putting their staff at risk."
From Alvarez's perspective, this was the only big misunderstanding the two organizations have had.
But according to a statement provided by United Way's communication director, Andy Tebockhorst, United Way has experienced multiple incidents with Eat Greater Des Moines staff members that have not aligned with their core values.
Alvarez said if the statement accurately portrayed United Way's feelings toward her, she doesn't understand why she's hearing about it now.
"I sat on their campaign cabinet, I co-chaired their food insecurity work group. They had me speaking to donors," Alvarez said. "If there were concerns with my behavior, or how I was approaching situations, it's surprising that they would continue to put me in those situations."
United Way also said in its statement that they have reached out to Eat Greater Des Moines and have not accomplished a resolution to move forward, which is why they have denied approval of the grant.
"I don't really feel, from our perspective, that their rationale that this was something that had been happening over the years is honest, because then we would know," Alvarez said. "We would have documentation about, 'here's the instances that we're talking about.' As far as we know, it was the one incident and that's why we were defunded."
Eat Greater Des Moines said starting this fiscal year $50,000 in the hole is scary, as that money went towards paying for the delivery of the many pounds of food they give out. Now, the group hopes to fundraise to get that work done.