From northwest Iowa, with love

Onica Jacobs definitely takes her hometown's motto seriously.

The Hartley woman recently organized an effort that would make every resident in "The City With a Heart" proud. After seeing news coverage from derecho-ravaged communities in central and eastern Iowa, she decided to act.

Jacobs, 27, took to social media last week to rally donations for food, water and other goods for derecho victims. The result was a whirlwind 24-hour period that netted more than $4,000 in contributions for the cause.

"I spent Wednesday and Thursday searching for places to donate to, but I was having a hard time finding where to help those directly affected," Jacobs said. "After watching Gov. Kim Reynolds' press conference, I thought, 'Why don't I just take stuff directly down there instead of sending money?' "

A derecho ravaged parts of 27 Iowa counties on Aug. 10. The weather event – which is defined as a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms rivaling hurricanic and tornadic forces – produced wind speeds over 110 mph, injured more than 60 people and killed three. It damaged approximately 14 million acres of crops and thousands of buildings while also leaving more than 200,000 without power for several days.

"It's just like a 40-mile wide tornado that lasted for multiple hours that covered almost our entire state," Reynolds said last week. "It is devastating."

Jacobs posted her initial call for aid on Facebook Friday afternoon, and the response was immediate. Her phone started blowing up with texts and calls from people who wanted to donate.

"Right away the response was awesome," she said. "There were so many people wanting to help out."

People were able to immediately contribute by donating to Jacobs' Venmo account, which is a mobile payment service app. She got to work calling grocery stores throughout northwest Iowa to see if they could donate any goods, but most had already maxed out their charitable contributions on back-to-school food programs. Jacobs then simply started buying up whatever large quantities of food and water they had available.

Jacobs said the speed at which everything took place was remarkable. Donations started rolling in on Friday at 3:30 p.m., and by 9:30 the next morning, she was already building up her stockpile.

"I had friends who helped going to different areas, and all the while, the money kept continuing to be donated," she said.

Saturday's helpers included Kailey Enger and Haley Hermstad, both of Hartley, and Hannah Rebollozo, of Aurelia. Jacobs snagged two trailers from her dad, Rob Jacobs, and began making arrangements for the road trip south.

Sunday's crew featured Jacobs, Andrew Richter, Austin Peterson and Kylie Wolthuizen. The quartet made their first stop in Madrid just south of Ames, but the devastation was evident before they arrived at city limits.

"It makes your heart super heavy to see all that destruction with the crops, and when you come into town, you feel so bad," Jacobs said. "They got hit super hard. There was a ton of trees down, and really it seemed like more trees were on the ground than were standing."

The group dropped 20 cases of water and some other goods at the fire station, along with a note. They continued eastward to Slater, where damage was also rampant. They dropped a portion of their haul before moving on to Huxley and Marshalltown, both of which were also ravaged by the derecho.

"The sheer amount of poles on the ground was just a crazy thing to see. The amount of work needed to get power restored is just so incredible," Jacobs said. "The fields were also very bad. Imagining how much wind it would take to completely flatten a cornfield, it just made it look like spaghetti."

The group dropped the largest portion of their load at the Salvation Army in Marshalltown, which was extremely short on goods.

"The staff said that their supplies had been emptied out during the week and they were trying to restock," Jacobs said. "It was just good to see some items back on the shelves."

The group headed back to Hartley after unloading in Marshalltown. Jacobs said she has continued to receive donations since Sunday, all of which will be donated to a disaster recovery fund in Cedar Rapids.

The Hartley woman was grateful for every contribution she received and believed the experience would stick with her for some time.

"Everybody was just super grateful for people stopping by to help. It was the Iowa way," she said. "It was cool seeing people coming together. This is going to be a really long effort to recover."