once again, making a appearance on the steele report, aaron buzza, the executive director of the waterloo convention n d visitors bureau. welcome back to the show. we have in front of us these trophies because your office has been very successful here, most recently honored by thetate of iowa from the towerism office. tell us about t tse awards. >> buzza: thanks for bringing me back. >> ron: this is your version of the emmys. >> buzza: it is. wurt a angst other arean the state, submitted awards and we were recognized as outstanding community for tourism. we were also recognized for having the outstanding website here if the ate, and thenlso for an outstanding promotional material for our travel series, travel waterloo. >> ron: and you're competing against all of the other cities, big and small all across the

state of iowa. >uzza: correct. >> ron: anani should point out, kim burger and her office in cedar falls, they're a previous winner of the community division, i remember you mentioned that also. >> buzza: absolutely. >> ron: you g gs work together a lot. >> buzza: when we have a destination like waterloo and cedar falls, people don't see the distinction to the communities, so we're happy t weweome people to the community at large and they're an award winner frefl and we're happy to match them in this case and be an award winner as well. >> ron: let's go to the webse right now. that was what you won one of the major awards. here's the waterloo convention and visitors bureau website. i like your headline. do you have a favorite video? it's called travel waterloo and episode number 25 coming up. do you have a favorite episode you want to show? >> buzza: there's an awful lot opportunity to do andnd explore

the community and tell the story in a slightly different way, but i'm particularly fond of the one we did here in downtown waterloo about the breakfast places, corland canyon, newton's, we were able to showcase those and bring friends with us and really get a real nice picture of what each place offers the visitor, and visitors could mean in this case your neighbor or my neighbor or somebody coming from los angeles. >> ron: uk walk right down the street -- i can walk right down the street and go t any of those and i've been in the cottonwood canyon recently. let's take a look at the video and come back and talk with aaron about what he thought about it. that's one of his favorites. let's take a look. >> my name is aaron and i'm on a mission to share why people dig waterloo, iowa. today on travel waterloo, a

our first stop, morg's diner, established in 1960, this classic american diner as local favorite. many of the employees have been with the diner for dededes, and doris anderson has searched guests for 54 of the diner's 55-year history. >> really nice. people are coming here really nice too. >> our menu recommendation, first, come with a big appetite. the giant made from scratch buttermilk pancakes are a pular menu item. they use over 800 pounds of tatoes each week to ensure guests have the opportunity to enjoy their hand made hash browns as well. >> is that big enough? >> let's see. i would say most people don't know howl eggs to put in their pancakes. >> our next stop, newton's paradise cafe which offers familiar food with an unfamiliar twist.

we're here with a couple of options and what would you say? biscuits and grara or this -- >> i love me some french toast. i like sweet in the morning. i will probably do that. >> this colorful downtown@calf phi serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and usess fresh, locally sourced ingredients. we recommend trying a healthy portion of the biscuits and gravy or the i iowa toast. or you can even bill your own only immediately -- build your own omelette or breakfast sandwich. perhaps you're just looking r a good cup of coffee to get you up and going in the morning. dig cottonwood c cyon because they serve some of the freshest coffee in town. in fact, they brew it by the cup. owner randolph bryan roasts all the coffee beans in house and uses a micro brew process to provide customers with a perfect

cup of coffee no matter what their flavor preference. >> in terms of flavor,hey are -- they love their bourbon peqan and their jamaica me crazy. sumatra. >> for more information about the places we saw today and for more of my recommendations on what to order for breakfast, check outhe tvel waterloo blog at waterloo.com or look at ourr youtube channel for a look at fast episodes and travel ideas. >> ron: so you put these videos together and in fact, i've actually posted them a couplple of times or shared them on my facebook page. >> buzza: thank you for that. >> ron: they are very interesting and even having been a long time member of the community, some of those -- the information is new to me even. that's kind of scary. >> buzza: well, what's fun is, in a 30-second commercial or a minute commercial, we can't tell the story appropriately about the community in two or three minutes, as you know, you really

still have to boil informamaon down to package it all together, but it gives us a chance to really focus in on the stories, to tell the story, as i said before n, a more in-depth way and like the restaurants for instance, did some introductions that we've and able to provide. barry eastman overr at rudy's tacos, sad they had people come in local that had never beenn there before. >> ron: and people sharing on social media or the website as valuabab tool for you, something at your disposal that hasn't there for years past. >> buzza: absolutely and we can track better. maybe it's contradict story here to kwwl, it's hard for us to track advertising. i'm not selling shoes like nike is, for instance. we're selling a community, and so when we can see the number of vivis, when we can see the

number of shares, when we can see the traffic that's translated to our website, that helps us an awful lot because it shows that people are seeing and sharing and then we get moree eyeballs which tells the story wert. >> ron: and your web personnel can do the same as ours. you can tell how many people viewed, which pages, how long they@stay on, and what their interests are and, of course, there's a lot of controversy about whether you're mining information or stuff, but that's the world we live in a that's a great way to use videos to share what's going on in the cocounity. >uzza: thank you. >> ron: let me ask you a couple other issues. you still have the hotel-motel tax and how does that work with what's going on in the community and your office? >> buzza: one of the things we like t tsay about the hotel-motel tax is yes, we're tax supported, but your money and my money stay here in the community as property tax owners. i'm not paying the hotel t t

it's a user fee, really, visitors to the community, and it averages between 700 and 800 people a night stay n waterloo in the hotels and they're paying for tourism development here in the community, either through our office, through the city's hotel-motel tax grant process or into the convention center as well. >> ron: do you have an idea off the top of your head how many hotels rooms are available in waterloo right now? >> buzza: we have just over 1300 in waterloo at the moment and we probe see between 275 and 300,0000of those occupuped throughout the yearar and so, you know, there's a fair number of people who are coming to the community, staying, whether they're here onusiness or here for other reasons, a class reunion, visiting mily, or some other reason, and they're here and sometimes we don't even ow that the visitor is sitting next to us at the table at the restaurant. but anybody could be a visitor. >> ron: and you'u' actively pursuing conventions there to come to waterloo and fill up all

of these 1300 rooms. >> buzza: absolutely we try to as much as we can. it's conventions, leisure travelers, mom and dad hopping in the family truck and driving over to waterloo to go to the water park, class reunions, military family, bus groups, a sportingroups as well. >> ron: so you're promoting everything that you possibly can. and also going back t these awards, you actually work with other communities and actually won an award with some of the other towns. >> buzza: we sure do. we working with dubuque, ames d the quadities on a intish marketing effort to bring in agricultural tours, so bring in 50 farmers from switster land or sweden or from the czech republic. these are c cses we've had rececely and they come in and tour iowa farms. they're really interested in technology and innovation. we're maybe a step or two ahead of where they are and it's an awful lot of fun to see the farming through their persrsctive because they're seeing new things that they can then take home and translate to their own farms. >> ron: and, of cose, they

want to see the john deere museum. real quickly, we're about out of time, but you work with the alliance too, with steve duff and his folks in helping promote new business. >> buzza: we're all in economic development, so whether it's a visitor coming and bringing their money or a new business coming and bringing employees and their investment, it's all economic development, so we're all part of the same team in the grand scheme of things. >> ron: aaron buzza, executive director of the beautiful convention and visitors bureau. check out the website. i love the video is. >> buzza: thank you so much. >> ron: there's 25 episodes so

you'll lfarn something, i >> ron: right now we'd lili to welcome to the program a couple of representatives of the salvation army of waterloo and cedar falls, great organization, as you kw, and their most important or one of the post importanantimes of the years coming up. let me introduce major harold poff and he comes to us from the state of indiana. this is his first year, so his first appearance on the steele report. we welcome you tohe cedar valley and we hope we can come through for you again this year, major. and grace cole is back with us this year. you've been with the salvation army how many years here locally. >>. >> cole: just a little over a year. >> ron: you're the development director. we tape this program and as the program airs on sunday morning, just last night, the waterloo blackhawks, the first ever event with them to kick off the red kettle campaign. >> cole: we are loving this

partnership with the blacks this year. what we've done with them or partnered th them was a special ticket price for tendees, and people who purchased through that price were able to not only go to the game for a lesser cost, but give a ticket to th salvation army as well for our youth program, d the major was center ice and received the first ceremonial contributions to the red kettle and dropped the first puck, and we got tohare information about the salvation army throughout the night. >> ron: that's great because the red kettles theheelves actually go out a little bit later this month. i believe you said november 13th, a we'll be lookor that again. the goal is pretty high.. 700 -- let me check my glasses. $730,000, and people in the cedar valley, major, you're going to find out have been very generous here in past decades and past years. what's your first impression having come h he from indiana? tell us about your background

>> poff: my wife and i have en serving as salvation army officers for 21 years. >> ron: wow >> poff:f:e actually served in three appointments in north carolina, and then two in indiana, most recently at fort wayne. we grewp in salvation army, so we're really familiar, have been all of our lives. as far as the cedar valley we've had a very warm welcome feel right at home. there's not a lot of differences in the people between indiana and iowa anyway. we all tend to be very down-home and down-to-earth and so we haven't found much change there. but we're really enjoying this community and looking forward to really getting out there and getting to meet more of them during the season. >> rononyou know, the salvation army here in the cedar valley has been around over 1 is a years and i -- 115 years and i

justead this on the web, bridging the gap that often exists between what the churches can freewayprovide and what the social service agencies can provide and you fill t gap in between, hollis tick ministry -- holistic ministry to fill the gap and you do that just down the street here. >> cole: last year, i was a little over 3,000 individuals in the cedar valley with assistance of the salvation army, and that was spread out between our various soesh service programs, primarily our emergency assistance and our shelelrs, but also christmas assistance. >> ron: now, we're teaming up again, kwwl, and talking about teaming up with the salvation army once again for the metal in the kettle campaign a a i jusus want to g ge you some of the dapet here. amanda is the reigning champi.

the cedar falls walmart, so she'll be back. she's going to be back november 28th. she can set the bar high and we can try to catch her. jerry gallagher working g th the cedar rapids salvation army and i'll be at the hyvee out on locust street in dubuque on the 12th of december and we wrap it up with ally, she'lll be at the coralville walmart. do we have a goal that we're setting for the metal in the kettle campaign? >> cole: last year's raised a little over $4200, so this year, we'd like to break that $5,000 mark. amanda's kettle alone was $1600 st year. >> ron: she had the good location. >> cole: she had an increreble n last year,, so she set the bar really high on individual kettles, so we're hoping you can all break that. >> ron: let's talk about some of the other events coming up later this no. we mentioned -- this month. we mentioned the christmas assistanceregistration, what

does that mean and who can be involved as far as registering for an event like that, major? >> poff: well, any families here in black hawk count that believe they are googo need assistance with providing food and gifts, food for the family, gifts for their children this christmas, can sign up to receive our assistance. >> ron: does anybody, any location not let you have a bell ringer? and i don't want to put any business on the spot. obviously walmarts have been very generous about letting salvation army belll lingers be out there. is that a problem or not? >> cole: we have great partnerships with a lot of our retail locations. unfortunately in the past few years with the rise of online shopping, we're seseng fewer stores simply because of that change in shopping habits, but our partnerships, we value them greatly. we have wonderful working relationships with a lot of businesses in the cedar vavaey. we have about 20 different

kettle sites this year and we're just going forward with what we got. >> ron: and, of course, tell people a little bit about -- the salvation army will get a lot of money raised and necessary money raised and the gold kruggerands will be showing up closer to christmas, but what you do impacts lives every day of the year. just talk about the daily meals. >> cole: theaily meals, we serve them weekdkds from11:30 to 12:30 and on an average basis, we're seeing 125 up to 250 people a day depending on the time of theftof the month for a hot nutrition meal, so the services are year round and impacting thousands here in the cedar valley. >> ron: i know you have a christmas dinner coming up. there is a thanksgiving dinner or not? >> our thanksgiving dinner is actually on thanksgiving day. our chririmas dinner issecember 23rd, so we're christmas meal as

few days before christmas. >> ron: and both of those at the franklin street, 89 franklin street, justouth of the kwwl studios. and how many people will you serve for that event? >> cole: last year for both, we served about 200 individuals, and so we're expecting the same if not more this year. >> ron: and everything you do in a lot of ways requires volunteers, doesn't it? you have incredible volunteers. tell us pour about that and how many people -- mre about that and how many people's it takes. >> poff: w wl, throughout the christmas s ason with everything we do, probably literally hundreds of volunteers. we get a lot of groups and organizations, some who volunteer to ringhe bell and others volunteer with one of the various dinners or helping to put together the toy shop as we're getting ready to distribute those items for the families that are looking for assistance. >> ron: so right now the main thing coming up will be after this program airs on november

8th, novber 13th is the big start day. >> cole: that's the day you start hearing bells in frontf stores. bebere thanksgiving, we're at about 15 different locations and after thanksgiving, we'll pick up a few more. >> ron: and be looking for us, the four of us. it will be ally, goir, amanda and we'll be at different locations and we'll be talking about this on the air for the metal in the kettle campaign and we'll go out there and do what we can also to add more than $5,000 this year, hopefully, for the campaign. so as always, you have an open invitation t tcome on the show and talk about this great event

>> ron: welcome back. as we like to wrap up the program today with barb prather of the northeast iowa food bank, she'e'the executive director, and this is a busy, busy time of year for you too, barb. every day is important at the northeast iowa food bank because u're helping how many people on a daily basis? >> prather: you know, it's estimatedd our services reach about 48,000 people here in northeast iowa, and so anything on a daily basis, whether it's delivering back fax or helping people out through our food pantries or our elderly program, the kids cafe, there's always something going on and our work is really never done. it doesn't matter what time of the year it is, somebody is a in need of our services, and we just have to be able to, you know, get the message out and this is the season of giving, and this is the time for us to get our message out of what we do, how we do it, and ask the community to support us >> ron: let's say you're asking someone right now, we need help

for the northeast iowa food bank, what do you need from them? what kind of volunteer hours or was kind of food do you need? >> prather: there's three ways that people can volunteer. they can always donate money. for ever dollar donated, we can help provide about four meals in the community. volunteering is probably oneof our number one needs because we can't do what we do without volunteers. last year, we had about 10,000 different volunteers. >> ron: oh my gosh. >> prather: help us with our services, whether packing backpacks, delivering food, helping with mobile services. there's always something that eds to be done on a daily basis or just once a months. if you want to bring your church group or youth group in, there's always something to be done. and we always need food if you give us money, it helps us bring in food, but there's also some items we can't get normally

donated through the channels, through feeding america, and our regional sources. so we ask peoplpl to do food drives and our most needed tups are always peanut butter, canned meats, canned tuna, protein items, canned fruits, all those kinds of things.. there's three ways you can help and also -- and actually there's four because you can always advocate and spread the word that hunger is an issue in our community. >> ron: talk about the new location. you've been there for a while now over at 1605 lafayette street, a brand-new location for the northeast iowa food bank. how has that improved what you're able to do? i remember the old location, you just didn't have the face for some of the food people wanted to donate. >> prather: right, we didn't have the face and the biggest way itgs improved is our ability to access fresh produce.e. we now have a facilitit with a cooler and freezer and it's not

know, frozen items, it's dairy products, you nana it, we get a lot of perishable products in and in order to do that, we had to have the facility. as a result, last year we were able to provide about seven million pounds of foodd to the community and that went out through our member agencies through the programs we do and we were able to help other food banks in iowa as well so it's enabled us to expand thahaand distributing fresh produce, that's now about 25% whatever we do. >> ron: by the way, that new facility, you paid for that, it was all done by donations. >> prather: there was a little t of government support, b it was predominantly done by the comfort, which we're grateful. >> ron: and you have a big food driving wrapping up soon, the students. all the area high schools take part. >> prather: yes, they do. it culminated november 16th at the food bank. when they bring the food in,

to bring in the m mst food based on the number of students in their school, and that really helps us stock our shelves through the winter months and over the next few months. next few weeks because what we're asking them to go out and collect,t, we'e'e asking them to go out and raise awareness to the issue of hunger, learn about hunger, how it affects their community, and then do something about it. and we're asking them to collect od that will then help us food so many people in our community. >> ron: barb and i both live in lud son and we know our students have done very y ll over the years. >> prather: i think they've one their category over the last few years. >> ron: so the pressure is on again. the holidays are a tough time for so many people. >> prather: during the month of december, w w sponsor our gift wrap booth at both college square and crossroads mall, so we'll be doing that again. as well as looking for volunteers. but if you're looking just, you

support, fall the food bank. we're always willing to partner with different groups in the community and anything anybody can do to help us is always greatly appreciated. >on: just check them out. they have the northeast iowa food bank facebook page. barb prather, executive director, northeast iowa food bank. have a great season again. the work you do is incredible. we'll see you all next week

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