Spikes

The House of Compassion offers free meals and resources for those struggling with poverty. On March 3 its new executive director Jasmine Spikes assumed duties.

She replaces Chad Hammar, who left the role last November after four and a half years of service. A total of eight applicants applied for the role.

“Since Chad leaving in November, Maryna Salas (our office manager) and our volunteers have been ensuring day-to-day operations continued without disruption to client services. Our board has primarily focused on things behind the scenes — such as broader agency needs, grants, financials, hiring, etc,” said Board President Lydia Wolken.

Spikes came to Iowa from the Dallas, Texas area to attend school at Iowa State University. In 2020, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in anthropology and classical studies. Her program gave her the opportunity to globe trot, visiting Japan, Greece, Italy, Canada and Costa Rica.

“I loved all the parts of anthropology. It has quite a few sub disciplines: cultural, linguistic, archeology, forensic and primatology, and so I studied a little bit of each to try to figure out what I preferred,” she said. “I tend to focus in forensic and cultural.”

Classical Studies taught her the history of ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt.

Spikes then worked at Ames Ford Lincoln and at Hach, an industry leader that creates solutions to help customers analyze their water more efficiently and more effectively.

“In both of those positions, I was promoted based off of my Excel skills and organization skills to positions that weren’t even originally jobs, because they wanted me to work on different things, to basically make things a bit more efficient around the company,” she noted. “I digitized quite a few documents, things like that, that were normally hand-written, so with that, I was able to apply a lot of those skills to what I’m doing here now, and skills I learned throughout college.”

She is also an artist with experience in logo creation and graphic design.

Her college sweetheart, Ridge Nennig, whom she married in 2022, has family in Marshalltown.

“We decided to move here recently,” she added.

She learned of the House of Compassion from a friend of Ridge’s who had volunteered with HOC.

“What I was really hoping to do once I came to Marshalltown was to figure out how I could serve my community, and I wanted to have a job in which I could help people and make a difference,” she said. “I saw this on Indeed, and I was amazed, because this was perfect. This was everything that I wanted to do, and I have the skills, I have the resources to be able to make a difference here. I was just so excited. I (said to myself) I have to get this one.”

The role of executive director is to oversee daily operations, supervise staff and volunteers, manage the budget, collaborate with community agencies to enhance services, spearhead outreach initiatives, and more. Spikes is working on getting financial literacy classes taught on-site. Currently, ISU extension teaches healthy nutrition and cooking. She’d also like to see sewing and mending courses taught. Around a dozen people could attend a class at a time, with free refreshments available.

“We plan on doing some renovations around the building, because we want to accommodate things like that classroom, and want to have a life skills library available in English and Spanish,” she said. “We’ll be needing things like specific types of bookshelves, furniture so people can have a place to sit while they’re learning, things like that. We’re trying to put together a flyer so we can get some donations.”

Its supply closet is in need of shampoo, deodorant, tissue and paper towels. It is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon and 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. A free evening meal is served Sunday through Friday from 5 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. HOC serves around 1,250 meals per month with 150 volunteers assisting.

Spikes said the HOC offers services and resources the general public may not even know about. For instance, there is a scholarship program for students planning to attend MCC.

“We have client services where we can help in emergency situations: help pay your utility bill, medical prescriptions, dental needs,” she said. “We pay the utility company directly. We offer free shower services during office hours. We have a job path program, which I’m very excited about, which if you can prove that you’ve been working at a place for two months or 60 days with those pay stubs, we will give you a $100 Walmart gift card. We do adopt a family, 80 families, during Christmas.”

HOC also pays for English as Second Language (ESL) classes at MCC.

“Our ultimate goal is we want to help people, but we want us to become obsolete. We want there not to be a need,” she said.

The HOC’s annual soup bowl luncheon will run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on March 30 at First Methodist Church. She looks forwarding to meeting people at the event. Soups will be donated by Opa Grill, served in bowls handmade by Marshalltown High School art students. Bowls are yours to take home following the event. Cost is $10 per adult and $5 per child (kids 6 and under eat free). Proceeds support HOC and the MHS art department.

A Renaissance woman, Spikes sews, paints, cooks, writes, reads, woodworks, forages, plays video games, plus makes balloon animals. She has a four-year-old German shepherd named Aegis. She may be reached at: director@houseofcompassion.net.