02 SEPTEMBER 2020 - MITCHELLVILLE, IOWA: JERRY BUTLER delivers a hot meal to a person in Mitchellville. Butler gets a daily hot meal at the library then helps out by delivering a meal to a nearby resident. There is no grocery store in Mitchellville, a small community in eastern Polk County. It doesn't qualify as a "food desert" under USDA guidelines because there are grocery stores within 10 miles in neighboring communities, but based on state data, Mitchellville is the poorest community in Polk County (which includes the Des Moines metropolitan area). The Mitchellville zip code has the lowest per capita income in Polk County. Many people don't own cars and can't get to neighboring communities to buy groceries. The library in Mitchellville has made arrangements with a neighboring community. Every day someone from the Mitchellville library picks up hot meals from a nearby town and distributes them in the library parking lot. PHOTO BY JACK KURTZ
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