Kazi Alward
She helps provide homes and food in the community
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She saw the food and wondered where it came from.
When she found out, that’s when Kazi Alward started volunteering for Table to Table.
“I volunteered at Free Lunch as I saw all these pies and cakes coming in and I thought, ‘Wow, these are really nice,’” Alward said. “They said, ‘Table to Table brings all this stuff,’ and when somebody asked me if I wanted to try it out, that’s how I got started.”
On Tuesday mornings — Thursdays in the summer — Alward and a partner drive a “big white van that takes a whole city block to turn,” pick up food from area stores and deliver it to different agencies as part of Iowa City’s Table to Table. Alward and others deliver the food to places such as the Ronald McDonald House, Home Ties, the Salvation Army and the Johnson County Crisis Center.
Alward said she used to volunteer for Table to Table up to three times a week. She’s now settled on one day a week.
“It’s just plain fun,” she said. “It’s just something I can do, and I feel comfortable doing it, and I love my partner I’m with right now.”
Alward also volunteers for Habitat for Humanity as the group’s treasurer. She started about seven years ago by collecting the mortgage and making sure the homeowner’s insurance and taxes were paid.
“I started by doing that and a year and a half later, they asked me to become treasurer,” Alward said. “It’s a job that I like to feel that I’ve kind of grown with, but it’s gotten to the point where we are servicing 44 mortgages right now … it’s gotten to be a huge operation.”
Alward said she feels fortunate to do what she is doing and has met so many wonderful people along the way. It makes her feel good to bring her skills to the table, she said.
“I’m not very good on the build site,” Alward said. “I can’t hold a hammer, and I don’t know how to lift a saw,” Alward said. “I’m not very good at any of that stuff, so I just feel like this is just my way of contributing because I really believe in the mission.”
— Mike McWilliams
