By Lisa Rossi
Kathy Underhill was raised in a family that prioritized serving others.
“From elementary school, I was helping to deliver Meals on Wheels to homebound older adults,” she said. “I was visiting nursing homes. We had a food pantry in our basement for the church. Food and hunger work have always been a part of my life since I was 5 or 6 years old.”
Since then, Underhill has spent more than 20 years working at every level of the nonprofit and government landscape to alleviate hunger. Before coming to Iowa this summer, she oversaw nine federal nutrition programs working for the state of Colorado, managing the distribution of more than $80 million in American-grown food. She helped found Hunger Free Colorado, the state’s leading anti-hunger organization, and served as its CEO. With a master’s in social work specializing in community organizing, she has also helped develop a new generation of anti-hunger advocates while teaching advocacy and policy at the University of Denver School of Social Work.
And she continues the work in Des Moines.
The Des Moines Area Religious Council board of directors announced earlier this year that Underhill would begin leading the organization as chief executive officer, effective July 1. She joined DMARC in June and worked alongside outgoing CEO Matt Unger until June 30.
Underhill said what keeps her engaged is that hunger is a “totally solvable problem,” but only if the government, charitable sector and corporations cooperate through policies and programs.
“I liken it to a Rubik’s Cube,” she said. “If we flip the sides, if we flip the policies and the programs in the right direction, in the right order, we can solve it.”
Her answers to the following questions were lightly edited and condensed.
Tell us about Hunger Free Colorado and some of the innovative things it’s doing to alleviate hunger.
We started off working on child nutrition programs. Colorado was ranked in the bottom 10 nationally in every single federal nutrition program when we started. So we started off working on school breakfast and school lunch, summer food and SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) but also developed a food pantry network. So that’s very familiar coming into DMARC.
More Iowans are using food pantries, and I imagine it’s the same in Colorado. What’s driving that?
It’s a couple of things. One is rising food prices, but there are other costs, too. You tend to pay the bills that come in the mail first, your rent or your mortgage, your utilities, your car payment, and then spend whatever’s left on food, almost like it’s discretionary spending. So I think the fact that more folks are going to food pantries is a sign that they’re struggling financially.
How has your background as a social worker helped your current work?
The first thing you learn in social work school is to start with a client, wherever the client is at. It’s the same with a staff person, a legislator, a participant in a program: You have to do that deep listening to be effective in any role.
How do you collaborate across complex networks and systems?
The biggest piece in bringing folks together is having a common goal or common vision, and that really helps because no one agrees on every single thing. There’s a reason silos exist. It’s also important to be willing to stay at the table even when you disagree, because inevitably you will. It’s kind of the same way that I’ve been married for a long time: You stay at the table.
