For more than 40 years, the nonprofit Embrace Iowa project and the Des Moines Register have raised funds to assist Iowans during some of life’s most vulnerable moments. Over the decades, that longevity has allowed several applicants, like single mother Ashley Voorhees, to approach the program for a second chance of a momentary financial lift.
During a 2024 pregnancy, medical complications restricted Voorhees’ ability to work full time at her restaurant job. Pregnant, with low funds and three young children to look after, she was also sleeping on a deteriorating air mattress and her uncomfortable broken couch.
Eleven years earlier, she had worked with the Embrace Iowa program to help fund the purchase of bunkbeds for her children. Now in an equally difficult position, Vorhees wondered “even though I got help 11 years ago, could I try it again? And it worked.”
Under the umbrella name of Embrace Iowa, the annual campaign is overseen by the Iowa Community Action Association and funded by the charitable donations of Register readers.