Feeding the kids this summer and Bix on the move in the city's.

We'll.

There are 28 million children who take part in the federal school lunch program every school year.

But what about the summer when children don't have that same routine?

Feeding America says that number drops dramatically to about 5 million kids during the summer.

Well, for years, the federal government has offered food assistance through an EBT card that lets parents shop at a convenient grocery store in Iowa.

They've turned away from that program, creating their own Healthy Kids Iowa initiative that offers $40 a month to be used at select distribution sites.

And lastly, the federal government is looking for major changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as Snap.

At the center of it all is places like the Riverbend Food Bank, which serves some food pantries in 23 area counties and selected the sites for the Healthy Kids Iowa program.

We're joined by the president and CEO, Chris Ford.

So, Governor Kim Reynolds has gotten approval for the, Healthy Kids initiative.

The $40 basic stipend that can be used, at places that the Riverbend Food Bank designates.

Tell me a little bit about this program and what people can expect this summer.

Yeah.

Healthy kids.

Iowa has kind of popped up on us real quick here.

We're very fortunate, though, that we do have a feeding program in the state of Iowa this year.

So that is that is a good thing.

And as you said, for the months of June, July and August, we will be providing $40 worth of food per eligible child, throughout, five counties that we serve in Iowa.

It's a replacement of the federal Ate program that everyone believes is very successful, and it works very well.

Tell me up.

Tell me about the difference between the Illinois side and the Iowa side.

Because the wheat is still being used in Illinois.

Yeah.

So it is very nice.

And and that, it does put money electronically on cards.

It gives families the opportunity to choose, meals for their specific, families.

I think what I would say right now is this is a pilot program.

This is the first year, and it's better than nothing at all.

And I think each of the six Iowa food banks are kind of working through it.

We haven't had a long runway, to do, the work.

But I think what you will find and what folks who utilize the program will find, is that we will be providing, nutritious, valuable food to families throughout, the counties of Iowa.

Well, Governor Reynolds has said that her program is just that.

It's a healthy initiative.

And that the program just led to childhood obesity.

How did you see that?

Yeah, I think you can look at that in two different ways.

I think as a food bank, we have always been a proponent of choice, of letting people choose.

When we we worked with over 400 partner agencies.

And one of the first things we ask, those agencies to do is to adopt a choice policy, which means if you were to come in and, shop at their pantry, you would get to choose what you would want for your family.

In this sense, there's not as much choice.

We will have a variety of items.

But again, I think most food banks would lean towards the choice alternative.

But the majority of our locations for this program, will have choice opportunities.

There will be some locations that don't have the capacity in terms of, shelving or refrigeration or refrigeration, or freezing, where they would actually have to choose a box, they would have a predetermined box of food.

When we're talking about food banks, so often we're talking about nonperishable items.

I mean, when you talk about healthy foods, a lot of times it is fruits and vegetables, which are of course, perishable items.

Is that a more difficult, is it more difficult for you to meet those standards?

It only it is because there to your point, there's a short shelf life on fruits and vegetables.

But our facility for example, we have 5000ft of refrigerated space, almost 5000ft of frozen space.

So we're able to purchase in large quantities, store that product properly, and extend the life a little bit.

Yeah.

So we're talking about the summer food program, but you're also worried about the national program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as Snap.

People used to think of it as food stamps.

Major, target of the Trump administration and Congress as well.

What are your concerns there about the future of the Snap program for people who are in desperate need of food?

Yeah, I think, food banks across the country, this is probably the largest threat to the, food banking world.

In many years, Snap is the most effective tool that we have to fight hunger.

It provides choice.

As we said earlier, it provides, electronic benefits that are easily transferred.

I think, from an economic standpoint, for every $1 that's spent in Snap, it generates $1.50, in economic revenue, which helps our farmers and our grocery retailers.

But most importantly for every one meal, that we provide, snap provides nine.

So any cuts to snap, would significantly, affect food banks?

How?

Just the increased demand.

Yeah.

So, let's say, for example, snap is theoretically, if this full snap bill would go through, the additional revenues that they want to or burdens that they want to put on the states in terms of financial hardships could eliminate the program, could reduce it in half.

So where most likely are those people going to go to fill the gap?

And that would be to the 400 partner agencies that we work with.

So we would see that is an extremely difficult situation to try to feed all those individuals.

There is, effort in the US Senate, to curb, what the House is proposing.

How optimistic are you of that happening?

From everything we've heard originally, we were told that the Senate was going to maybe write a different version of the bill.

We are meeting on this daily.

That's how important the topic this is.

From what we've gleaned, that is maybe not as true as we thought.

And, there are a lot of things that the Senate does, like, that we could potentially see, in the bill that would roughly be the same as the House bill.

Snap has always been under the microscope.

And it has been under attack by by certain groups.

What makes this year different?

You know, I think a new administration with, a new philosophy, on cutting costs and, trying to save money and, I mean, you deal with the people that are receiving the food day in and day out.

I mean.

They seem to be under attack.

They do.

I think there's a lot of stigmas out there about, who the people are that are on snap.

What we see is a lot of families, a lot of single parent families, a lot of families with children.

I would I would be lying if I said there probably aren't some people out there.

There are snap er rates.

So yeah, it's not a perfect system.

But it does take care of a large majority of the people that are facing food insecurity.

And we were talking earlier is that, I mean, food banks really became so critically important as they are every year.

But during the pandemic, you saw a real change in the population of those that were using food banks.

Is this challenge greater than the pandemic?

Yeah, I think this challenge is greater.

It is a threat to how food banking has been done for since 1977.

Snap has been funded totally by the federal government.

Administrative costs have been shared by the states.

I think there's two important differences now, that people need to understand.

That will change.

Snap.

The first one is, this bill would call for, administrative funding to be split instead of 5050.

It would be 75, 25.

With the states taking on that additional 25%.

What that means for both Iowa and Illinois is significant impacts on budgets that are already tight.

We estimate that alone would roughly cost the state of Illinois $88 million.

State of Iowa about $26 million.

So you begin to consider what state budgets look like, what these changes, you know, could take place.

And it's very impactful.

And I think the second piece that I would want people to know is I mentioned before, there's error rates.

Snap is a complicated system.

If anyone has ever filled out a Snap application, it's not something you do in 5 or 10 minutes.

The states have helped people fill those out, but now this bill calls for states to typically, be penalized now on snap error rates.

For example, last year, Illinois's error rate was 9%.

Iowa's error rate was 6%.

In the last 20 years, there's been one state that's been South Dakota that has not had a error rate less than 6% for one year.

So I think that tells everybody that the process, there's some issues with how the process is put together and how we determine, error rates.

The second part of this piece that I think is important for people to understand is this bill calls for penalties on error rates.

So I mentioned the state of Illinois, $88 million, sharing the administrative costs add at 9%.

Assuming the error rate stays the same, add another $888 million, Jim, to that total.

You come up with almost $1 billion that the state of Illinois would have to come up with in their budget to fund Snap.

Conversely, for Iowa, we're talking about a total of about $41 million, both last year.

Iowa had to borrow from their reserve funds to balance their budget.

There there is, it's it's hard to imagine how states can take on, these types of additional, debts and not cut other things.

States generally spend the majority of their money on public safety, health care and education.

And so what what do Iowa and all they're going to do?

We feel like this bill puts that burden on them, and it's going to affect the people of, Iowa and Illinois.

Whether you're on snap or not, because of health care, education and public safety.

One last area is you had, you have the student hunger drive, which you depend on so much.

We did.

Which ends, I believe, in November.

And you have the, postal workers, in early May.

Correct.

May I believe?

Yep.

There's not that many events between the two.

So how do you get through the summer months at the food bank?

Yeah, it's a great question.

So, we typically, you know, we are rescuing food on a daily basis from retailers.

We continue to do that.

I would say every retailer within our 23 county service area at one time or another, or on a consistent basis, provides food to us.

We have also come up.

We've we've done some creative things.

We have a new program called All Hands on Deck.

Where we are partnering with, community businesses and communities.

Support, that program with a $10,000 donation.

We go out there and buy $10,000 worth of food, and we bring that organization into the food bank and basically have a team building packing event, that lasts anywhere from 2 to 3 hours.

We also take that opportunity to educate folks on, the different parts of food banking.

So we're really focused right now on utilizing that all hands on deck program.

Our thanks to Riverbend Food Bank president and CEO Chris Ford.

In a moment, Bix lives and is on the move.

But first, here are some of the events that may be perfect for you, your family and friends.

Thanks to visit Quad Cities.

Check out the things to do this week in the Quad Cities.

View artwork by local artists and members of Clark's youth group.

On June 12th at the figgy Art Museum.

Then you can watch the Quad Cities River Bandits at Modern One Park on June 12th.

You can also watch the Quad Cities Steam Wheelers on June 14th at Vibrant Arena at the Mark next.

Enjoy great music and great drinks on Bally's Quad Cities Casino and hotels.

Lakeside patio.

Or on June 15th, you can ride around the Rock Island Arsenal and explore its history.

For more events like these.

Check out our events calendar at visit Quad cities.com.

When the old Peterson hearted Von Marr Building, later known as the Redstone Building, was renovated to create the River Music Experience, one key to the Renaissance included a tribute to jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke.

Later, part of the old buildings basement was converted into a museum to feature more of Bix's memorabilia.

Well, that was threatened during Mississippi River flooding in 2019 and again in 2023.

So now the museum is on the move out of the basement and in a place where it could shine right across the street.

Joining us is museum director Nathaniel Kraft.

How difficult is this move?

I mean, you're going across the street, so it's not that much of a distance, but you got to pack up.

Yeah.

No, it's luckily for us, not too far away, but, you know, it's it's gonna be a lot of hands.

I mean, you know, we don't have to hire a moving company, but we need volunteers.

Yeah.

Obviously, we got to deconstruct the whole exhibit, carry it across the street, reconstructed.

I mean, we still get to do painting things like that.

So we, you know, we have a group that's, you know, coming in, but we're still looking for more people because, you know, we trying to low cost, try to make it work.

And luckily just walking across the street not too hard.

But you know, we have three pianos, a bunch of woodwork, things like that.

Well, let's your space was in the basement and sometimes you're worried it's out of sight, out of mind.

This is quite the opposite.

It's a very public space.

It's really going to allow you to have exhibits and bring people in to.

To learn more about Bix Beiderbecke.

Yeah.

No, I think the price of admission was almost trying to find us.

Because you go into a building, you'd see there's like two restaurants, and then there's a list of, like, eight other places that are in this building.

And then you have to figure out to go down to the basement from an elevator and take a couple rights, and then you find us.

But now you can walk right in from the street and you'll be right in the museum.

So you've been a part of the museum for a number of years.

Tell me a little bit about, the people that come to the Bix Beiderbecke Museum.

Because there is that pilgrimage each year because of the jazz festival.

But it's more than that, right?

Yeah.

We are open year round.

You know, the festival brings in about a thousand people.

Plus every year.

A lot of them are not from the area.

Most of our guests are about 55.

60% of our guests are not from the Quad Cities.

So we get a lot of travelers, a lot of people coming in from other cities, especially in the summertime when they're on their vacation.

There's a lot of people that do like cross-country tours to see all the sights that they want to see.

And if they're fans of Bix, they want to see his house, they want to see his grave, and they want to learn about him.

Or if they already know about him, they want to know more about them.

And usually they find us.

Then they come into the museum and we get people, you know, that come from Chicago for day trips all the way to China.

You know, it's it's worldly that we get people coming in.

And it's interesting because if they're fans of Bix, it's like they say, I'd never want to be anywhere else but Davenport right now, which, you know, people that live in the Quad Cities might be like, that seems odd.

You know, I live here every day.

Sure.

Right.

You take it for granted.

It's a normal place, you know.

For me, I'd rather go see one of the bigger cities.

But we get people from all over the world that are like Davenport's, like the one place I want to see.

So tell me a little bit about what you're going to be able to do with this new building.

Across the street.

We were saying that it's the old, junior achievement, biz town, biz town.

That was a, which is a really an open space for you.

It's an open palette.

You can do anything you want.

Yeah.

So we are moving from 1600 square feet to 2100ft.

With the extra space, we're getting a a lobby that will have spaces for employees to work.

For a number of the first few years, I was working from home, primarily if I wasn't doing tours.

So employees, you know, work in the space.

We can have growth for a few more volunteers doing more projects, but we also have more room in the exhibit for temporary exhibits.

And that's what I want to get to, because you've got a lot of, donated memorabilia, that, as most museums have, they're in storage.

What what are you looking forward to showing off?

So we got it out after we flooded in 2023, and it kind of just sits around and people kind of walk by it.

But, one of the big things that we've had sitting in storage for seven years was, Bix's grandparents grand piano they had in their house.

Bix grew up playing this piano.

He would go there, you know, weekly to play for his grandma and his friends.

And we kind of just had it tucked away because it didn't fit the permanent exhibit.

Yeah, but now we have space for it because it's it's a grand piano.

It's it's huge.

It weighs a ton.

You know what that.

Yes.

It's it's a very ornate piano.

It's really nice.

Very cool.

And now when you walk in, when you enter the lobby, it's gonna be right there.

You'll see it.

We have other objects.

We have, some instruments from local musicians that we kind of usually take out when we do, we do public events where we're tabling somewhere.

I usually bring some of the instruments and stuff that we don't have on display, you know?

And so now we can kind of temporarily show it sometimes, you know, maybe do an exhibit of just artwork.

We have an art collection that we just can't really show, because we have a permanent exhibit.

It doesn't really fit Bix's timeline, but we have this stuff and people can now see it, and we'll be able to rotate it out.

Maybe we'll bring in a collection from another museum somewhere.

And that's what I was going to get at, because, I mean, it's not just because you do have some other, memorabilia from that era and that genre.

Yeah, no, we have instruments from almost everyone he's played with at this point.

We kind of get a new instrument almost every year.

This past year, which will be on display for the new exhibit is, moles trombone.

He's a jazz trombonist.

That was mostly known playing with Red nickels.

Another cornet player that we have a cornet from.

So it'll be right next to his cornet.

And they were kind of a duo, like, Bix and Frankie Trumbauer were, during the jazz era.

So we have some really great stuff, you know, and we have trombones, saxophone.

We have Bill Rink's trombone.

A couple of years ago, we got Speaker Wilcox's trombone, and he played at the Bix Festival several times in his 90s up until 1996, when he passed away like so.

We have some really interesting stuff from musicians that you might have heard of, even if you haven't heard of Bix.

But people have heard of Bix.

Yeah, I just think it's very interesting.

And here's the thing is that when I talk to people who don't live in the Quad Cities, when they think of Bix, they think of the big seven race, not necessarily the jazz festival, or they don't even know who Bix is.

Do you think that having this museum on on a major street, with its own storefront is going to bring back the real point of Bix?

Yeah, we really hope so.

We've been wanting to have people come down during this big seven race because we're on second Street when you finish the race.

So the Quad City Times kind of tells you to go down to Second Street, walk to your car from there.

So most families that come to the big seven race, they usually filter through Second Street.

And we were we've been there, but people don't see us because we've been in the basement.

We don't really have a sign up front right now.

We're front and center.

We don't have a huge sign.

You can't miss driving by.

We have window space that going to be covered in vinyl.

That is going to be advertising the museum and Bix and jazz, and, you know, our grand opening and we're aiming for Bix seven weekend.

So we're expecting people to know, hey, we're here, you know, figure out why the race is called the Big Seven.

Tell me a little bit about, because I love the phrase Bix lives because in so many ways, this community has made sure that this jazz legend is not forgotten and that his impact in the music is not forgotten either.

You sense that still, because you're such a major part of that.

Yeah.

You know, Bix Lives has been around as a slogan since, I think the 60s or 70s, around the time when the festival started, it had been used by several Bix groups that that, you know, from the East Coast to the West Coast.

So I keep getting people arguing over who invented the phrase.

Oh, really?

Okay.

Because it's been around for a long time and people all recognize hearing it different places.

And for us, that's really what we want.

We want to make sure he lives and not just, you know, his legacy, but we want to make sure that, like, the, the music, the passion he had kind of continues on with new generations because he was a kid that he loved music and he constantly played music and whatever he was doing, he always was gravitated towards that.

And he followed his dream of being a musician, and he got to the highest echelon of of jazz musicians for his era at one point.

And, you know, he came from Davenport, Iowa.

You know, we want people to know that Davenport and the Quad Cities has a rich music history.

A lot of musicians have come through here.

A lot of musicians grew up here.

You know, he's not the only person you know.

We have Louie Bellson, who grew up in Rock Island.

Pat Patrick, we have I'm trying to think there.

There's there's a few of them, you know, and even not just jazz musicians, it's, you know, blues, bluegrass, rock, you know, country.

We we want people to know that, like, this is a place for music.

It's always been a place for music.

I think people, you know, they take it for granted because you go to a coffee shop and there's a stage and people are playing there usually once a week, you know, so, you know, there's music around.

You just don't think about it because you think that's just a normal thing, but it's not really.

If you go to another neighborhood, another city, there might not be that many concerts that there are here.

Well, and the museum, once you do open up, I mean, what is the key?

I kind of think you want something classy.

You want something that really captures the time period, or is that what you're aiming for?

I mean, how are you going to make this like you said, I mean, so many people from out of town, but make this a destination that people are going to go, wow, that Bix was cool.

Wow.

That era of music was great.

Yeah, well, a big thing we've found is a lot of the guests who do come through, especially people come from like the festival.

There is an interesting generational gap where you have, you know, the older people that grew up on jazz, but now you have people under the age of 40, you have people between, you know, 18 to 34, 35 that are kind of reinventing jazz.

There's a lot of young jazz musicians who travel the country.

We bring some jazz musicians in for tours and stuff every so often, and they're also just they're interested, and we want to capture that because that there is that revitalization of this 1920s, 30s, 40s culture that is younger people will want to learn about, they want to be involved in, and they want to kind of, you know, they find something, you know, satisfying with it.

And we get a lot of the younger people and they say the reason why they like Bix or why they even heard of them is they would go to their grandparents house and they play Bix records, you know, it reminds them of their grandparents.

It reminds them of that stuff that they did growing up.

And for us, I think that's an important thing that we want to grasp.

And we want people to kind of know that it's it's not a 100 year old thing.

It is.

But it's it's also it's new to a lot of people.

And we want to kind of capture that moment and hope people kind of get that feeling that, you know, that jazz age that that, you know, Bix got when he was 16 years old, he got that itch and he took it the rest of his life.

Our thanks to Bix Beiderbecke Museum and Archives director Nathaniel Kraft.

And once again, it's hoped the museum reopens July 25th, just before the 2025 Bix Jazz Festival.

Each week on the city's, we're featuring people telling us a little bit about their civic spark, why they're in the business that they are in, and why they have this passion for what they do.

We asked about the civic sparked to Cindy Diehl Yang, who's the head of the Putnam Museum.

I got involved with museums because I like how much they work to connect themselves with the public, and especially at the Putnam Museum, we work with history and with science, which really talks about the innovation of the past and how that can help us learn about the innovation of the future.

And I think that type of connection from the past to the future is so important to our communities to know about.

Our thanks to the executive director of the Putnam Museum, Cindy Diehl.

Yang 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.