01 RV Mag 04-25 2

SPRING 2025
■ Churches offer shelter for victims
■ Opportunities remain for ministry
■ Library turns the page after disaster
ROCK VALLEY
MAGAZINE
Community overcomes flooding
to the occasion

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SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 3

CONTENTS |
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
12
Base of
Operations
Opportunities
remain for
ministry in wake
of flooded
properties
ON THE COVER
7
Strength of Community
Churches provide shelter for flood victims
ROCK VALLEY
MAGAZINE
SPRING 2025
FOUNDER AND PUBLISHER
Peter W. Wagner
PRESIDENT
Jeff Wagner
EDITORIAL STAFF
Joya Breems
Athan De Jong
Kirsten Elyea
Kate Harlow
Eric Sandbulte
Morgan Sachen
Aleisa Schat
Amber Wester
ADVERTISING DESIGN
Kaylena Engel
Carissa Fohwein
Elizabeth Myers
Chelsea Parks
Camryn Reinking
Alex Rolfes
26 Resilience During Recovery Downtown entrepreneurs restoring following flooding
17 Turning the Page
12
38
44
The Weight of Waters
Creative Living Center provides mental
health support to school
By the Numbers
Rebuilding Rock Valley
Rock Valley Magazine
is published by
Iowa Information Media Group,
Sheldon, Iowa.
For advertising rates
and other questions,
please contact us.
Rock Valley Magazine
P.O. Box 160
Sheldon IA 51201
1-800-247-0186
712-324-5347
Fax 712-324-2345
Copies of Rock Valley Magazine
are available from participating
Rock Valley businesses.
We welcome suggestions,
story ideas and letters
to the editor.
35
‘Big River,
Bigger Love’
©2025 Rock Valley Magazine
No material from this publication
may be copied or in any way reproduced
without written permission
from the publisher.
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| SERVICE
Strength of
COMMUNITY
The walls that dissolved during 2024’s
flood were not just physical. Walls
that separate Rock Valley citizens are
distinct to the tight-knit community — what
church you attend, what your last name is, what
high school you graduated from. But in the early
hours of June 22, 2024, none of that mattered.
“We all have our circles, family or friends or
church family, but during that time, those selfimposed
barriers were gone,” said Chris Van
Beek, associate pastor at Faith Reformed Church
in Rock Valley. “People came because they were
loved. It doesn’t matter who they were, what
their story was, or it was just ‘How can we love
you well?’”
Van Beek has served for four years at Faith,
which sits on higher ground on the southern side
of Rock Valley, removed from the Rock River.
Faith has partnered with Love INC of Sioux
County, an organization that aims to encourage
churches and connect people in need with resources
and pastoral care.
In the week immediately following the flood,
Love INC staff took time away from the office
to help as individual community members. The
organization stepped back and let local and state
agencies step in.
The staffers at Love INC wanted to help outside
of normal office hours and outside of their
normal roles, so they posted adjusted hours on
Churches
provide
shelter
for flood
victims
TEXT BY ATHAN
DE JONG
SUBMITTED AND
FILE PHOTOS
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 7

the front door and went out to serve
in the community and the two shelter
churches they partnered with.
Love INC is not an emergency service
or a “big brother” to churches, but
rather an agency to empower and equip
churches to serve communities. A time
of local crisis stretched and grew the
leadership.
“We really talked about how we live
into our mission and consider what
some new and unique ways that we
could expand or broaden our mission to
serve,” said Debbie Van’t Hul, executive
director of Love INC of Sioux County.
The office opened back up fully the
week after the flood. Lora Petitt, a
Sheldon native on Love INC’s national
leadership, walked the team through
how other branches had responded to
major, traumatic events.
“We found that our mission stands
up even in an emergency, even though
we’re not emergency services by nature,”
Van’t Hul said. “We partner
with and mobilize churches, and that’s
how we find volunteers and the funds
needed to serve locally.”
Late June of 2024 wasn’t the first
time a flood hit Rock Valley, and when
the crisis hit, Van’t Hul’s mind went
back to 2014. Their prior response
showed the staff where to start.
“I had saved all of the things that we
did,” Van’t Hul said. “There were fewer
people impacted then, but we got our
bearings of what we focused on then.”
But in the first hours of evacuation,
the churches Love INC partners with
jumped to action.
Chief sheriff’s deputy and emergency
management coordinator county Nate
Huizenga had called Van Beek the afternoon
before, Friday, June 21, and
asked if the church could shelter evacuees.
“Nobody thought it would be what it
was, but he asked, ‘Are you going to be
around, just in case?’” Van Beek said.
“Faith had been a shelter before.”
About two dozen people from low
homes came to the church that evening.
Van Beek settled them in trailers
behind the church and waited. He did
not expect the night to be dramatic, but
he stayed at the church, just in case.
An hour after midnight, refugees
started driving up to Faith Reformed
Church. As minutes dragged by, things
began to be more dire. Van Beek remembers
a pickup that drove up with
five people crammed in the bed.
A payloader brought six people up
the hill in the raised bucket, its thick
tires some of the only ones able to navigate
the rising water.
“We just prayed here. I was out in it
thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to be tragic,’”
Van Beek said. “Surreal is probably
the best word. I still look back once in
a while and can’t believe that that happened.”
By 2:45 a.m., the church was full,
and Van Beek called Trinity Christian
Reformed Church. Refugees who were
still searching for safety moved east, toward
Trinity. Van Beek and the team at
Faith could focus on the people in their
8 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

care.
The church was not equipped to
house over a hundred people, and
Faith’s partners came together.
“This is where our partnerships
came together, with our city leaders,
partnerships with Love INC, the Red
Cross, other churches,” Van Beek said.
“It was quite amazing actually how
quickly we were able to come up with
a lot of essentials, from water and food
to medications, diapers, and formula.”
Faith quickly contacted Hegg Health
Center in Rock Valley, and hospital
staff came to the church and spoke to
anyone who needed medication. Volunteers
drove to Hy-Vee in Sioux Center
to fill them. There were only a few
cases where the prescriptions could not
be filled.
Twenty-year-old Rylan De Grote had
been canoeing around Rock Valley doing
rescue work that morning when
Van Beek called him. A cancer patient
at Faith had left their chemo pills in
their house. Van Beek drove down to
meet De Grote by the Pizza Ranch and
told him where to find the medication
in the flooded house.
The men paddled to the front door.
Inside, the table floated, with the pill
bottle standing on top of it.
Kim De Jong got a call about 2:30
a.m. that she needed to open Trinity
Christian Reformed Church for flood
victims. She is Trinity’s ministry coordinator
of 17 years.
The first flood victims were already
at the church when De Jong reached it,
and more started coming immediately.
Like Faith, Trinity was not prepared
to house refugees, but resources soon
started arriving.
“The amount of things that just
showed up to meet the needs of these
people was simply incredible,” De Jong
said.
Some needs were filled as soon as
community members learned about
them. One family pulled their flatbed
to Sam’s Club in Sioux Falls, SD, filled
it with pallets of water and toilet paper,
and dropped it off at church.
“People just loved on each other,”
De Jong said. “It didn’t matter what
school or church you went to. We did
what needed to be done.”
Trinity has partnered with Love INC
for more years than De Jong can remember.
In the aftermath of the flood,
Love INC has helped assist pastors and
congregations with long-term effects of
trauma.
“We were noticing a lot of mental
health mood swings; mental health issues,
anxiety, depression.”
Arranged by Love INC, experts came
in to eat lunch with pastors. They talked
about setting boundaries, helping
congregants suffering from depression,
and how to help flood survivors experiencing
suicidal urges.
By mid-August, as the immediate
concerns began to diminish and the
long-term effects began to surface,
Van’t Hul and the board spoke with
mental health professionals about how
to deal with these layered issues.
The flood tested Rock Valley but underscored
the strength of community
relationships. Van’t Hul watched Love
INC fulfill its mission by equipping
churches to serve during those early
hours of June 22.
“From our perspective as a Christian
nonprofit, we saw the churches in our
community do amazing things, which
I believe is what the Lord called the
church to do,” Van’t Hul said. “Our
community of Sioux County came together,
and we heard amazing stories
of God’s protection here.”
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Operatio
HOPE HAVEN |
When the rains started in
N’West Iowa that Friday
night of June 21, 2024,
the community of Rock Valley was
going to test its mettle as the flooding
would sweep up homes, businesses
and the peace they shared in the small
town.
And yet, as the folks at Hope Haven
can testify, the difficulties inflicted by
the historic natural disaster offered an
opportunity to demonstrate kindness,
charity and perseverance.
Hope Haven is a Rock Valley-based
nonprofit ministry serving and advocating
for the disabled, providing housing
and job opportunities for people
with physical, mental and intellectual
disabilities.
Hope Haven chief executive officer
Matt Buley and chief financial officer
Terry Meyer recall the prepara-
At the time, there were people won-
while others went to private homes.
tion for the expected storm. dering if all this was actually necessary;
after all, they went through
The Rock Valley Police Department
issued the order to evacuate the routine in 2018, which turned
Friday, and Hope Haven began the out to be unnecessary.
work of moving 32 clients from “We’ve done this a number of
their homes into temporary shelters.
Some went to a local church the river threatens to rise, out of
times before,” Meyer said. “When
a
12 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

ns
BASE OF
Opportunities remain
for ministry in wake
of flooded properties
TEXT BY ERIC SANDBULTE | PHOTOS SUBMITTED
precaution, we move people. In the back of my mind, I thought, ‘This
is just another time we do this move and the next day; we’ll move
everyone back in like we normally do.’”
The torrential rains came that evening and continued into the
night. Some of Hope Haven’s buildings have water sensors, and
Meyer received notices when those alarms began to go off that night.
“I tried to get to one of the buildings to check it out, but the streets
were too flooded already. It was at night, so I had to wait for the
morning to see what exactly had happened,” Meyer said. “Come daylight,
the water level was just about up to Main Street, so we still
couldn’t get to the properties. That day was a lot of waiting around.
We did move some clients to different homes and set up different
beds and found places for them.”
It was not until Sunday that he and others could safely reach
Hope Haven properties and begin to see just how badly they were
damaged. When they did, they knew moving everyone to safety in
advance was the right thing to do.
“We have mobility issues with some of our folks. There are others
we support who don’t necessarily understand things as they are
happening, so having had more time to move people and talk them
through it ended up being crucial,” Buley said.
The flood destroyed two 12-bedroom facilities and a five-bedroom
home in Rock Valley. A four-bedroom home also was severely damaged
but has since been restored. One of those 12-bedroom facilities
was called Riverview; the force from the water was so strong the
building was shoved 10 feet from its foundation.
Hope Haven had the added misfortune of being doubly hit by the
flood since it has facilities in Spencer, another one of the N’West
Iowa communities particularly hit hard by that weekend’s water. In
Spencer, 18 residents had to be evacuated in the middle of the night
by boat since a preparatory evacuation had not taken place there.
“One of our Hope Haven homes in Spencer happens to be adjacent
to one of our staff members and next door to a different staff
member,” Buley said. “When the boats came, they stopped at both of
those employees’ houses first to get them, and both of those families
said, ‘No, don’t take us, go take the people from Hope Haven first.’
That’s just heroic.”
As for other buildings, Hope Haven’s warehouse was one of the
worst hit. While the office building received as much as a foot of
water on its north side, the warehouse had about 2½ feet of water
at its highest.
That was a particular problem since the warehouse was used for
the nonprofit’s international wheelchair ministry, which delivers new
and used wheelchairs around the world thanks to a dedicated team of
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 13

volunteers. The Rock Valley warehouse had about 1,000
refurbished wheelchairs and 875 pediatric wheelchairs at
the time, stacked up in cardboard boxes that collapsed as
they soaked up the water. Between the water’s effects on
wheel bearings and foam pads, cleanup crews had their
work cut out for them sorting through everything and trying
to save what they could.
But people did turn out in force to lend a hand there,
with more than 100 volunteers at the site the Wednesday
after the flood.
“We restored as much as we could, the volunteers were
incredible helping us just spray the mud out of here and
then clean off as many items as possible. People were
cleaning cushions and brakes in hopes of restoring them.
We were able to restore some things and other things, it
didn’t pan out, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort,” Buley
said.
There was a lot of heartbreak for the Hope Haven clients
who lost almost everything from the flood. Despite
best efforts to recover whatever personal items they could,
there was not much left in some cases. It is one thing to
lose valuables like a wallet, but one client was not able to
find a loved one’s urn back.
“To lose that is a very big deal, and then everything you
own other than maybe a backpack full of some items is
gone,” Buley said.
Despite the hardship this dealt for Hope Haven’s clients,
there are stories of God at work in unexpected ways.
One of those ways came in the form of available housing
at Whispers of Love, Hope & Joy’s Sioux Center
campus. The ministry had reached the final stages of its
renovation of a former assisted-living facility to become
a healing campus for women and their families seeking a
safe place from domestic violence.
Whispers founder, Pastor Deb Rensink, had been
frustrated with the delayed arrival of security systems it
needed to install before it could house women safely, but
that delay meant the campus was empty yet ready to welcome
10 displaced Hope Haven clients, who were able to
remain there for three and a half months.
One of the powerful moments that stands out to Buley
was a time of prayer Hope Haven personnel shared in
Spencer.
“We had some of our staff come whose homes had been
affected. It was such a restorative time to pray together,”
he said. “That was a defining thread throughout all this,
the unity. Things that seemed important a week before
weren’t important anymore. It was all-hands-on deck together.
You saw that within our staff, within relationships
of some of the people we support. You definitely saw it in
14 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

all the people who came to help us.”
With the initial cleanup work done and reconstruction
work underway at several locations and completed for
other Hope Haven properties, one of the main challenges
left to navigate is simply the ongoing wait for funds from
the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Thankfully,
careful stewardship of money has meant there has been
access to rainy-day funds to help keep things moving in
the meantime.
Despite the cleanup and recovery seen last year, Buley
sees 2025 as a year of growth and opportunity for Hope
Haven, including for new housing programs.
“We’re initiating Host Homes, and that’s where somebody
is able to support an individual in their home, which
goes back to the very beginning of Hope Haven when we
were a school and people in Rock Valley hosted students
in their homes. That’s now going to be an option of support
for us that we will roll out,” Buley said.
And opportunities are presenting themselves for the international
wheelchair ministry, too, as they begin testing
a tilt-in-space wheelchair designed for such conditions as
cerebral palsy.
“The story of Hope Haven in 2025, one part of it is the
flood, but what we’re really focused on is getting better
and growing, and that’s happening in a lot of exceptional
ways,” Buley said.
“Rock Valley is our home. We would not exist if not for
the people of Rock Valley. Our legacy is Rock Valley, and
our future is here. This is the home office for a growing
organization that extends beyond the borders of Sioux
County by quite a bit. This is the base of our operations
and where our Double HH Manufacturing exists. This is
where so many of our international ministry work happens.
Every part of Hope Haven is led by the people who
are based in Rock Valley. That’s always where we’re from.
It’s part of our culture and part of what makes Hope Haven
special.”
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 15

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COMMUNITY |
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY JOYA BREEMS
Turning the Page
Nicole McCray, director of the
Rock Valley Public Library,
never thought she could
get tired of books. She loves the crisp,
perfectly square edges of a new book,
the whisper of flipping a page, and the
excitement of what words lie behind it.
Libraries nourish children’s love of
books. Children jump up and down for
the next book in their favorite series
and fill laundry baskets full of “Nancy
Drew” and “Garfield.”
Moments like these are McCray’s
bread and butter; her job helps people
read stories and share their own.
McCray sees the grins of the grandparents
who check out movies and
books for their visiting children and
grandchildren. She is there when the
first-time parent brings their child to
storytime. She gets to be with people as
they grieve the loss of a loved one and
look for nonfiction books to help with
grief.
“I’m not a librarian just because I
love books. If you’re a librarian just because
you love books, you’re not doing
your position fully justice; it’s serving
people,”
Last June, floodwaters swept across
18 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

Rock Valley, destroying businesses and
homes. The waters raced through the
Rock Valley Public Library, tearing
books off the shelves, moving furniture,
and muddying up all those crisp paper
edges into a damp sludge.
The day-to-day operations of the library
changed dramatically.
McCray’s heart for service never wavered.
Book rescue
On June 21, 2024, the Friday night
of the flood, McCray had stayed late
at work, ordering new books. Rain
trickled down her car windows as she
drove home from the library’s downtown
location. She knew parts of Rock
Valley near the Rock River were prone
to flooding as 4 inches of rain had
drenched the ground the previous day.
Around 2 a.m., warning sirens
blared, and McCray shepherded
her children into the basement. She
thought it was a tornado and bemoaned
the fact a tornado could hit while parts
of the city were already flooding. She
slept through the rest of the night.
“I feel embarrassed
to say this, but I was
just out of the loop; I
didn’t know what was
happening a few blocks
from my house until the
morning,” McCray said.
“It didn’t even cross my
mind that the library
could flood.”
The next morning,
a quick social media
scroll showed drone
footage of flooding that
had occurred overnight.
A friend called
with stories of children
swimming through their
front yards after the
storm.
“And I said to her,
‘That’s a rumor because
I know where that family
lives, and they live by
the library,’”
“Oh, Nicole,” her
friend said, “Your library
flooded. There’s
water up to the stoplight downtown.”
“Oh, my gosh! I have to go,” McCray
said.
She hung up the call, sick to her
stomach.
On Sunday afternoon, McCray and
her co-worker Shelly Hoogendoorn
surveyed the damage.
Earlier that day, a staff member had
texted her pictures through the front
window but could not get inside the library
because upended furniture was
blocking the entrance.
“By then, I did sort of have an idea of
what I was going to walk into,” McCray
said.
They entered through the back door,
not wanting to cause a scene for other
people cleaning up on Main Street.
It was apocalyptic. Mud everywhere.
Books spine open on the floor, soaking
up the floodwater. Tables upside down,
a jumbled mess of furniture piled
against the back wall. DVDs crunched
beneath their feet as they tried to find
clean ground to step on.
Rock Valley Public Library prepares for next chapter
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 19

“I was stepping on books, and I knew
I wasn’t going to be able to save them,”
McCray said.
She and Hoogendoorn grabbed
handfuls of dry books from the top
shelves where the water had not
reached and loaded them into her husband’s
pickup. She laid them open on
the floors and tables in her house, airing
them out to prevent mold damage
from the humidity.
The following day, McCray returned,
with permission from the city, on a rescue
mission. With her house already
full, she secured space at Netherlands
Reformed Christian School and filled
three classrooms full of the salvaged
titles.
By Tuesday night, even books that
had escaped the floodwater absorbed
so much moisture from the air McCray
was worried about mold damage. She
decided to call it quits.
“We’re not going to save any more,”
McCray said.
They had saved 2,000 of the library’s
45,000 book collection.
The following week, cleanup began
in earnest. The city assigned 70 volunteers
to remove the rest of the soggy
books and furniture.
The volunteers made quick work,
ready to get their hands dirty and their
jeans muddied. By the end of the first
day, every removable item — books,
shelves, furniture — was out of the
building.
On the second day, the volunteers
tackled the carpets, hammered out
wet wallboard and removed cupboards
from the walls.
“I felt so much gratitude and relief.
Something that felt so impossible only
took two days from volunteers,” Mc-
Cray said.
Temporary plans
The city deemed the current library
building usable.
The library set up a computer lab
at Netherlands Reformed Christian
School, knowing community members
might need access to public computers
to print Federal Emergency Management
Agency documents or insurance
claims after the flood damage.
With the summer reading program
still going, children also needed a space
to turn in their slips.
“I was champing at the bit to get a
temporary space because all these people
were already contacting
me about donations;
they were dropping them
off at my house,” McCray
said. “My garage was
full; Shelly’s garage was
filling up. We can’t keep
having people bringing
us their books; where are
we going to put them?”
By August, McCray
had located a more permanent
temporary option:
the former Lighthouse
building on 14th
Street.
The back room became
donation storage,
and the front space held
a hodgepodge of donated
bookshelves that eventually
would become the library’s collection.
A foot of water also had damaged the
Lighthouse, so the team of four library
staff members went to work putting
up drywall, installing carpets and constructing
bookshelves. Dana Rose, one
of the librarians, built wooden bookshelves
to line the main room’s walls.
They poured over shelving user manuals
to piece together donated shelving
units.
“We did a lot of things that we never
ever, ever thought we’d do as librarians,”
McCray said.
In addition to the 2,000 books the
librarians had saved and inventoried
in June, 8,000 items had been checked
out to patrons at the time of the flood.
With no building to return them to,
Rock Valley contracted with the Sioux
Center and Hull Public libraries to accept
Rock Valley returns.
Those 10,000 items, each labeled
with an “I survived the flood” sticker,

became the first to grace the shelves of
the temporary location.
Books incoming
The back room continued to fill
with donated books, sometimes by
the truckload. After hearing about the
Rock Valley Public Library’s situation,
local book clubs, schools and churches
all pitched in to help them replace the
collection. Libraries from farther away,
like Des Moines, Chicago and Denver,
also began to donate mountains of materials.
McCray never once asked for
donations.
“I was thankful so many people were
thinking of us, but it was also sort of
depressing because it felt like we never
were getting anywhere. We’d empty a
space, and another trailer would come
in, and the space would be completely
full again,” McCray said.
Not all the donated books were
prime candidates for becoming library
books. Some were outdated, some donations
had water damage, and many
copies were duplicates of donated
items.
McCray estimates at least 100,000
donated books crossed the threshold of
her building.
“Had I accepted everything that
people were trying to give me, we could
have easily had twice that because I
know one group that had collected almost
another 100,000, and I turned
them away because there’s no way we
could have taken all those,” McCray
said.
By November, her staff was still
combing through the donated books,
deciding what they could add to the
catalog, and filtering through duplicate
copies. Before replacing lost copies of
books, McCray wanted to ensure the
titles had not already been donated.
“I never thought I could be depressed
by books; being in a room full
of books is like an ideal scenario for me,
but after so many weeks of it, I was getting
tired.”
McCray’s staff, alongside a team of
dedicated volunteers, tirelessly sorted
and cataloged more than 30,000 donated
books to become part of the library’s
collection.
For books not making the cut, the
library hosted a large book sale, selling
paperbacks for 50 cents and hardcovers
for $1. McCray also contracted
with Better World Books, a nonprofit
company that distributes books at low
costs to low-literacy areas worldwide.
The library’s newest project involves
scanning the leftover titles to see if
Better World Books will accept them
for donation.
McCray also has a friend from Love
INC of O’Brien County in Sheldon who
can shred the books to turn them into
insulation.
“What to do with all these books is
an actual problem, so that’s one thing I
feel like is a responsible way of getting
rid of what isn’t selling and isn’t accepted
from Better World Books,” McCray
said. “They’ll be getting another life.”
With a tentative reopening date of
Jan. 7, 2025, the team charged ahead,
wrapping the books in protective plastic
and alphabetizing them on the shelves.
McCray also used the flooding as an
opportunity to change library management
systems from Atriuum to Apollo,
the system used by many other Sioux
County libraries, making it easier to
share materials between locations.
Learning Apollo created a few additional
challenges as staff navigated creating
listings for books in the new system.
Lisa Kooima, a mother to three
school-age children, spends her days
volunteering at the library. Staff member
Ada Orta trained Kooima on how
to wrap the books in protective plastic,
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 21

where to place the colored stickers
that separate the books by reading
level and how to alphabetize books
in a series for display on the shelves.
“With younger kids, I wasn’t able
to get out and help right away after
the flood, but now that they’re in
school, it’s nice to get out and feel
like I’m accomplishing something,
helping other people,” Kooima said.
“Our volunteers have been very
dedicated in helping us wrap books;
you can’t just have anyone come in
and wrap books; they have to know
how to do it and be willing to do it
well and do it correctly,” McCray
said. “We miss them when they’re
not here. They’re like part of our staff
family.”
The next chapter
In January, the temporary location
opened to the public three days a
week; it remained closed on Mondays
and Fridays so the staff could focus
on adding books to the catalog and
getting them ready to be checked out.
“It’s been so fun to be open and see
people again because as much as we
love each other on our staff, I think
it was really good for morale to be
open, seeing the public and helping
the public,” McCray said.
She looked forward to giving
books recommendations to patrons
and directing them to their next read.
As her staff navigated the new space
and the new system, it took them longer
to figure out if a book was available,
and where to find it.
“It used to be like you could find it
in your sleep, blindfolded,” McCray
said. “Now, I’m almost hesitant to say
a title out loud because I don’t know
if that exists, and I don’t want to talk
it up just for us to not have it.”
Most library visitors are impressed
by the size of the collection
and color in the temporary space. A
light-up pixel peg board with a pink
heart adorns the wall upon entering.
Patrons may purchase a peg for the
pixel board for $20 as part of a continued
fundraising campaign toward
the library.
Children entering the “new” library
for the first time get excited
to see all their favorite authors lining
the shelves, or to show off their
books to the librarians. But still, it’s
different.
“We get asked time and time
again, when is the old library going
to be fixed?” McCray said.
The future of the “old” library
building is still in the air. A month
ago, McCray hired an architect from
FEH Design in Sioux City to work
on redesigning the old building. She
worked on demographic research
and scoured through old library usage
statistics to inform the design
team for the new space. For a library
in a town of its size, the Rock Valley
Public Library has one of the largest
collections and highest circulation
counts in the state of Iowa.
“People underestimate us and think
that we’re just a cute little town with a
cute little library, but we’re more than
just what the trends are, and I really
want to do that justice in what I present
to FEH,” McCray said.

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SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 23

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BUSINESS |
RESILIE
Friday night, June 21, 2024.
Zach Van Beek had just closed his
restaurant, Cedar Rock Bar & Grille,
in downtown Rock Valley for the night. Rain
pounded rhythmically against the roof as he
locked its doors.
A block away, Katie Van Zee, owner of
Rooted Plant + Coffee Shop, had just finished
putting her 3-year-old daughter to bed. She
still was on maternity leave after the birth of
her 8-month-old son Morrison.
Kendra Pollema, owner of Ember & Co., one
of Rock Valley’s newest downtown businesses,
was at home with her husband, watching the
weather on TV.
The rain continued. Knowing Rock Valley
was prone to flooding, Van Beek filled bags
with sand and strategically placed them to
divert floodwater away from buildings. The
water table was already relatively high; the
community had received more than 4 inches
of rain the previous day.
Around 11 p.m., Van Beek’s wife called; water
was pouring into their basement through
the couple’s egress windows. They lived on a
hill. He sped home.
At 2 a.m., the sirens blared. The city was
under a flood warning. Since 8 p.m., 3 additional
inches of rain fell on the soggy town.
Van Zee opened the security footage from
her coffee shop and watched helplessly as the
water rose. The power went out, and her security
footage went black. There already was
Downtown entrepreneurs restoring following flooding
26 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

NCE
a foot of water in her store.
Pollema, who lived about 10 minutes
out of town on a hill in the country,
watched her texts nervously as in-town
friends sent her phone-lit videos and
pictures through the outside windows
of Ember & Co.
Van Beek hopped on his utility vehicle
optimized for driving through
mud and potentially flooded roads to
make the trek downtown and assist
with evacuation efforts.
Shoulder to shoulder with an elderly
couple who had slept through
the first few hours of rising waters in
their home, Van Beek helped them into
his UTV and drove them to a shallower
patch of ground.
By around 3 a.m., Van Beek and his
passengers sat chest deep in the water.
The UTV’s transmission, worn out from
several hours of partial submersion,
sputtered to a stop and died. They were
on 15th Street a block away from Cedar
Rock Bar & Grille.
TEXT BY JOYA BREEMS | PHOTOS BY JOYA BREEMS AND SUBMITTED
“That’s when I saw it.
It was 3 in the morning,”
Van Beek said. “Never in
a million years did I think
we’d get water by Cedar
Rock.”
DURING
Recovery
A passing pickup
helped Van Beek drag his
bedraggled UTV out of the
water and gave him a ride
back to his house. He crept
in quietly, showered, and
settled on the couch, not
wanting to wake the rest
of his family. At 5 a.m., he
finally drifted into listless
sleep.
‘A giant mess’
A few hours later, Van Beek stood
outside Cedar Rock Bar & Grille, assessing
the flood damage in the daylight.
With the power out, all his refrigerated
inventory was a waste; the basement
was a swimming pool, with 7.5 feet of
water covering the private dining room,
kitchen appliances and shelves, along
with all the goods stored on them.
Van Beek’s office, the restaurant’s
computer system, and file storage, were
completely submerged. Rushing water
destroyed the walk-in freezer, refrigerator,
water heaters, and electrical wiring.
At Rooted Plant + Coffee Shop, Van
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 27

Zee stared at her business, similarly dismayed.
Two feet of water licked at the bottoms of tables
and chairs, swept away pieces of grinders and
espresso machines, and covered the whole store
in a layer of muddy brown sludge. Her warehouse,
two storefronts away, had seen 4 feet of water,
depleting all her inventory.
She had just ordered thousands of coffee cups,
enough to last the full year, which had soaked up
the slimy flood water and floated across the shop.
All Van Zee’s smoothie mixes, coffee syrup and
bags of espresso beans had morphed into damp,
grimy globs of diluted coffee and sewage water.
“It’s such a stupid thing to be sad about cups,
but we had thousands of thousands of cups
that just soaked up all the water and were gone.
They were a giant mess to clean up, and all that
money we spent on cups ended up being gone,” Van
Zee said.
At nearby Ember & Co., Pollema and her husband,
inspected the damage to her clothing store,
which had been in operation for a month. Its basement
had flooded; waters had shifted concrete
from her basement into the back alley, and her
electric wiring had short-circuited. Water lapped
at the top of her basement steps. Upstairs, puddles
of pooled rainwater dotted the floor of her
storefront.
“It was kind of a blessing in disguise being
open for only a month because I didn’t have any
carryover inventory from previous months,” Pollema
said. “We’re just dipping our toes yet, so why
28 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

wouldn’t I still go all in? I might as well keep trudging
along with this.”
Had her business been further along, she would
have stored inventory pieces in the now-flooded basement.
‘We’re here to help’
With bridges out, Pollema’s normal 10-minute
commute took her an hour. Friends shined their
pickup lights into the store as family members carried
armfuls of sweatshirts, bootcut jeans, and cowboy
boots into her husband’s car.
They carted the clothing to her grandma’s house
to prevent additional humidity and water damage to
the fabrics.
“The funny thing is, we asked no one to come;
my husband and I made the drive to see what it’s all
about, and suddenly there’s a lot of cars here saying,
‘We’re here to help,’” Pollema said.
She used the flood to get to know her business
neighbors and build camaraderie. They borrowed
a sump pump from Nearly New Town and shared
a generator with her business neighbors at Family
Eyecare. When the museum owners on the other
side of Pollema’s shop could not get into town right
away because they had to prioritize cleaning up their
house, which also had flooded, Pollema offered to
help.
“We were able to get into their basement, see the
water levels, and decide whether we should do the
sump pump first in their basement or ours,” Pollema
said.
By Sunday, all of Pollema’s inventory was safely
away from the flood water, and the basement drained.
Cedar Rock Bar & Grille took a little longer to clean
up. Not wanting to pump out the water too quickly
in case the walls collapsed, it took Van Beek’s team
almost three days to completely drain the basement.
They battled the rising groundwater, with water rising
through their floor drains just as fast as they
could suck it up with sump pumps.
“My mom lost her house, my grandpa lost his
house, and my brother lost his house, so those first
few days, we were bouncing from restaurant to my
grandpas to my mom’s house to my brother’s house,”
Van Beek said.
At Rooted Plant + Coffee Shop, a group of 20 volunteers
shoved mountains of wet coffee cups, lids,
grinders and bottled syrup into a pile in the back alley.
It took two days for the volunteers to clean out
the coffee shop and the warehouse.
Van Zee balanced her home life with rebuilding her
business. She had child care lined up for her infant
son before the flood, but he did not take a bottle well,
so often, Pollema would have a friend run him over
to the shop, and she would nurse him while she was
covered in the sludge from rebuilding.
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 29

‘Sense of normalcy’
As soon as she got Rooted Plant +
Coffee Shop sufficiently cleaned up,
Van Zee began thinking about how to
continue to offer services.
“We knew that the community really
needed something uplifting and a sense
of normalcy,” Van Zee said.
Rooted owns a coffee cart, and although
the bottom two feet of the cart
were underwater, the inventory stored
on the top was salvageable. Van Zee
strategized a way to get the cart up and
running so it could offer iced coffees
and lemonade to community volunteers.
She needed to replace a plumbing
piece that allowed the cart to run the
espresso machine without being connected
to power.
With travel in and out of Rock Valley
still difficult, Van Zee had her dad, a
trucker, meet her sales representative
on the side of the road near Sioux City
to exchange the critical piece.
Within a week of the initial flood,
Rooted had its coffee cart operating
in front of its store. Rooted employees
manned the cart until noon and then
shifted their efforts toward cleaning up
inside their building.
“It was definitely a very emotionally
draining couple of weeks, interacting
with all these people who had lost
everything,” Van Zee said. The coffee
cart “became an area where people connected,
they cried, they came up to the
coffee cart, and everyone was like ‘What
does your house look like,’ ‘What does
recovery look like for you?’”
At Cedar Rock Bar & Grille, Van Beek
did much of the repair work himself,
not wanting to overwhelm the already
busy construction firms and volunteers
helping other businesses. Van Beek
and a group of volunteers replaced the
concrete flooring in the basement, tore
out all the drywall and cleaned up the
space. He began reordering equipment
30 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

in July, with a tentative reopening date
set for mid-August.
‘An opportunity’
Ember & Co. transitioned to online
ordering for a few weeks before the
grand reopening of its physical shop
during Rally in the Valley, which took
place over the weekend of July 10-12.
“As I was getting some of those online
orders again, I would run to my
grandma’s house, grab their packages,
run back to my house, print out their
invoices and stuff like that,” Pollema
said. “It was a little hectic, but I was
thankful to get those orders in.”
Ember a& Co. reopened its doors to
the public on July 12, the same day as
the tractor pull. Out-of-town visitors
who came to Rock Valley for Rally in
the Valley stopped by Pollema’s store to
check out her western-inspired clothing.
“My favorite thing is my customers;
it’s great to learn their story while
they’re still finding items that can
build their closet, and build their confidence,”
Pollema said.
Shipping delays meant Cedar Rock
Bar & Grille was not able to open as
quickly. Van Beek did not have a walkin
freezer for the first few months after
the flood.
Instead, he purchased five upright
convertible fridge-freezer units from a
local hardware store.
“We were constantly running out of
things because I could only order so
much because I only had so much storage,”
Van Beek said. “We just limped
along is the best way I can say.”
The last piece of replacement equipment
arrived in January.
Rooted Plant + Coffee Shop used the
flood as an opportunity to pilot new initiatives.
When the business reopened in
early August, it launched a new online
ordering system, new menu items like
fresh-squeezed juices and a grab-andgo
station for quick bites.
“This is a time to use this disaster
as an opportunity to change things up;
we’re buying new equipment; maybe
we want to try something new, “Van
Zee said. “Maybe it takes a flood to start
coming up with that sort of stuff.”
In December, Van Zee announced
she would open Rooted Kitchen next
door to the coffee shop. This plan had
been in motion since 2023 but was delayed
by the flooding.
“It was hard to even think about because,
after the flood, I was questioning
if this business was going to still come
back,” Van Zee said.
After seeing all the community support
for rebuilding Rooted, Van Zee felt
God calling her to continue her plans
for Rooted Kitchen, which will tentatively
open in July.
“I started this business at 19. I grew
a business while getting married and
having a kid, and then COVID, another
kid, and then a flood. Rooted and I have
grown up together.” Van Zee said.
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 31

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SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 33

YOUTH |
‘Big River,
TEXT BY KATE HARLOW | PHOTOS SUBMITTED
Bigger Love’
The summer of 2024 brought both nightmares and
hope to much of N’West Iowa.
A deluge of rain and the ensuing floods created
chaos as individuals and communities experienced
desperate need, and at the height of the flooding, the situation
was dire. As the waters receded, the scope of all the
work that was needed to return everyone to life as before
was daunting.
That’s not the story that Laura Sohl-Cryer wants to tell.
This N’West Iowa native, who grew up on the family
farm between Boyden and Hull, wants to tell the story
of the helpers — those who were willing to lend a hand,
truck, time, food, shelter and much more.
It’s a story of hope that she longs to share, and it’s a
story that she’s written for children.
Her story is called “Big River, Bigger Love” and is being
illustrated by a talented artist named Riva Nayaju.
“Although she resides in Iowa now, she is originally
from Nepal and remembers the destruction that happened
as a result of the 2015 earthquake near her hometown
in Nepal. Her understanding of just how deeply a
natural disaster impacts a community has made her a
wonderful partner for the book,” Sohl-Cryer said.
The story is told from the view of a child.
“It is written from the perspective of a child who finds
hope after a flood by witnessing the powerfully kind and
selfless actions of the ‘helpers,’” Sohl-Cryer said.
It was the people — her people — that inspired Sohl-
Cryer’s next children’s book.
Sohl-Cryer grew up in N’West Iowa and graduated
from Western Christian High School in Hull in 1993.
She attended Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville
before transferring to the University of Iowa in
Iowa City and earning a master’s degree in communication
education.
Sohl-Cryer worked for several years in academia at
a collegiate level before answering the call to work as a
church leader in Waterloo.
She also spread her wings and took up writing professionally.
She has published four books with two of them
written for children. Sohl-Cryer and her family still live
in Cedar Falls, where her husband teaches, and it is only
four hours away from her hometown.
When the flooding hit N’West Iowa, she and many of
the people in her congregation at Good Shepherd Church
felt the call to do something to help those affected.
“As I watched all the news coverage and read the social
media posts about the 2024 flooding in northwest Iowa —
especially Rock Valley, my heart was aching. Along with
being an author, I work as a church leader in Waterloo.
My small congregation and I had been praying weekly
34 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

N’West Iowa native creates children’s book about flooding
for those recovering from the floods
— and the congregation decided they
wanted to do something tangible
to help,” Sohl-Cryer said. “So, the
church collected a special offering
and sent it to ATLAS as they helped
flood victims. They also gathered
two truckloads full of clothes, bedding
and cleaning supplies, which
we delivered to northwest Iowa.”
It was while she was on this mission
that she got the inspiration for
her next children’s book.
“While there, I heard so many stories
of devastation followed by stories
of resilience — mostly pointing
to the positive impact of all the many
‘helpers’ and I was so touched,”
Sohl-Cryer said. “That is how ‘Big
River, Bigger Love’ was born.”
The entire experience called to
mind the summer of 1993.
“We had either a derecho winds or
a tornado hit our farm in such a way
that we had this old grandpa cottonwood
tree that was towering above
everything else on the farm that it
sucked up the grandpa cottonwood
tree and landed it on our hog house
and killed the hogs inside and everything,”
Sohl-Cryer said. “And I just
remember I did come back to see
that, and what resonated with me
was I could hardly get in our driveway
because so many people were already
there helping because I didn’t
get there until the next day. And
the grandmas had cinnamon rolls,
and the grandpas had tools, and the
neighbors had trucks, and everyone
was just helping. And I think that
sometimes that just really just is so
healing in those traumatic moments
to see those people helping. In such
unexpected ways, and without even
being asked, they just show up.”
This book is to help children learn
to have hope and to be one of the
helpers for others in their life.
“The book is written from the
perspective of a child who’s going
through the experience of having
their home flooded in a devastating
way, losing a lot, and it’s that child
finding hope as they witness the
kindhearted and helpful acts of other
people,” Sohl-Cryer said. “People
want to help. And then I think when
little ones see the helpers, it helps
them to turn away from the devastation
and to see something positive.
And so, that’s what the book is
about. It’s about all of these things,
one after another that these helpers
did. And just the idea that children
are probably watching that.”
The book is not done yet and is
hopefully set for publication for July,
but in the meantime, Sohl-Cryer is
hoping to share not just the story of
some of the helpers but of the people
of N’West Iowa as well.
“At this time, I am still investigating
the idea of extending the
children’s book to include a collection
of stories at the end — told
by those whose lives have been impacted
by a flood,” Sohl-Cryer said.
“I put out a call inviting people to
reach out to me if they wanted to
share their flood stories and have
received about a half a dozen responses
so far. I am still seeking
more of these stories — folks can
e-mail them to me at laurasohlcryer@gmail.com.”
From devastation to hope — everyone
has a story to tell, and Sohl-Cryer
wants to help people do that.
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 35

Call us for all your
electrical
needs
•New •Home •Remodel
•Commercial
•Repair •Farm
712.470.2300
ROCK VALLEY, IA
offers start to finish carpentry needs.
Whether you’re looking for a general
contractor or a subcontractor, our top notch
professional crew is your answer!
We’ve been in business for over 27
years and love what we do.
Call 1-712-330-9645 for a quote or to
answer any questions you may have.
Serving the following cities:
Rock Valley, Sioux Falls, Canton,
Brandon and Tea, SD
712-330-9645 | Rock Valley, IA
RESIDENTIAL
Driveways • Garage Floors
Basement Floors
Patios • Sidewalks
Poured Basement Walls
AGRICULTURAL
Fenceline Bunkpads
Cattle Confinements • Hoop Barns
Deep Pit Cattle Confinements
Hog Buildings • Bunkers
Cattle Yard Paving • DNR Walls
Shop Buildings • Commodity Sheds
Poured Walls (4, 5, 6, 8,12 or 16')
COMMERCIAL
Parking Lots • Finish Floors
Foundation Walls
712.470.3508 | Rock Valley, IA
Check out
our many
Shingles
& Siding
Colors
plus many
other
BUILDING
PRODUCTS!
ESTABLISHED 1904
Farmers Lumber Co.
Hwy. 18 • Rock Valley, IA • 712.476.5362
Monday-Friday 7-5, Saturday 7-noon
K&J
Body ShopINC.
=Auto Body Repair
=Paintless Dent Repair
=Refinishing
=Chief Frame Straightening
=Glass Installation
=24 Hour Wrecker Service
1403 10th Street • Rock Valley, IA
712-476-5475 • kjbody@premieronline.net
GARBAGE
RECYCLING
FOR ALL YOUR DISPOSAL NEEDS!
1-1/2 to 30 Yard
Containers Available!
Commercial • Residential • Roll-Off Services
Devin Hoekstra 712-541-7441
Nathan Hoekstra 712-470-4836
Proudly serving Rock Valley and
those towns that surround!
36 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

Keeping your money local for
over 5 decades!
TOGETHER,
LET'S DRIVE!
1427 10th St,
Rock Valley, IA
712.476.5309
1971 2025
We take pride in
serving our
CUSTOMERS!
712-476-2723
Rock Valley, IA
Scan QR Code to
visit our website!
Zomer
Company
Real Estate
Farmland Management
WHERE WE WORK
FOR YOU!
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The Zomer Company has a long history beginning over 75 years ago. The Zomer company was orginally founded as Vande Vegte & Zomer Realty &
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712.476.9443 zomercompany.com 1414 Main Street • Rock Valley, IA
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 37

HEALTH |
After Rock Valley was hit by catastrophic flooding
in June of 2024, homes and businesses were
lost, possessions were swept away, and the
Rock Valley School District was left in disarray.
Classrooms sustained heavy damage, athletic facilities
were unusable and science labs were destroyed.
Superintendent Matt Van Voorst knew the rebuilding
process would be difficult.
“You have the mixed emotions — ‘How do I build this
entire district back?’” Van Voorst said. “We kind of did
it in waves.”
Classrooms were displaced for weeks or months, occupying
provisional spaces at a nearby church and a temporary
building was erected adjacent to the school by
the state of Iowa. Teachers who remained in the school
building taught in rooms that bore the signs of flood damage;
they stored their teaching materials in totes and on
palettes lining the hallways.
This spring, the K-12 school is nearing the end of a
yearlong rebuilding process, according to Van Voorst, but
his primary concern at the beginning of the school year
was not related to structural repair. It was the well-being
of his staff and students.
“That was my biggest concern at the beginning of this.
‘How are we going to support our staff, who we are leaning
on to support our students?’” Van Voorst said. “Our
students are doing the same thing — they’re coming to
school dealing with it and going home and dealing with
it. You can’t get away from it. Our staff — we’re doing the
same thing. So, there were multiple layers, and it was
definitely on our list of goals to make sure we’re finding
supports for that.”
One of those supports came in the form of Katie
Vander Zwaag, a licensed mental health professional
and registered play therapist at Creative Living Center,
a longtime provider of mental health services in Rock
Valley.
Vander Zwaag was designated as the Emotional Support
Person, or ESP, who would make regular visits to
the school.
The school district, in partnership with Creative Living
Center, developed an innovative program to meet
the mental and emotional health needs of students and
teachers. They did so by designating Vander Zwaag as
an Emotional Support Person, or ESP, who would make
regular visits to the school.
“It’s that concept of being a supportive presence, but
it’s not formal therapy sessions,” said Creative Living
Center director Dr. Shawn Scholten.
The ESP concept reflects a creative reworking of another
therapeutic tool, the Emotional Support Animal, or
ESA. Like an ESA, an ESP is available to provide comfort
and support when needed.
“Katie is very busy when she’s in the school, having
conversations, greeting folks and being a listening presence,”
Scholten said. “The definition of an emotional support
person is someone who provides comfort, reassurance
and a sense of security to individuals experiencing
emotional distress.”
Vander Zwaag’s professional training and experience
made her a natural choice for the role of Emotional Support
Person, but she also was chosen to lead the program
because she already was a familiar face to many in the
Rock Valley School District.
“Katie is a Rock Valley native, well-known face in the
community, and a mom of four, with two children in the
Rock Valley public school system,” Scholten said.
Vander Zwaag said the summer months are typically
THE WEIGH
OF THE WATERS
38 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

Creative Living
Center provides
mental health
support to
school district
TTEXT
AND PHOTOS
BY ALEISA SCHAT
restorative for teachers — a time to recharge
after the rigors of the school year.
For many Rock Valley schoolteachers,
however, the summer of 2024 was a period
marked by devastation and loss.
“The flood made for such a chaotic and
stressful summertime,” Vander Zwaag
said. “It was certainly traumatic on many
different levels. The school is obviously
just one example, but many staff went
from spending their summer gutting
their homes to gutting their classrooms
and then entered a new school year where
both their work and home had to be rebuilt.”
ESP
Vander Zwaag began by making weekly
visits to the school during the fall semester.
Sometimes, she was accompanied by
a clinical mental health intern from Creative
Living Center.
As the need for additional support became
less acute, Vander Zwaag’s checkins
slowed somewhat during the spring
semester. Vander Zwaag had informal
conversations in hallways and classrooms,
but the school provided spaces
for private conversations when necessary,
too.
“Katie went into the schools about
each week for the first semester, and
somewhat less frequently this semester,
to check in with both staff and students
who might wish to share a frustration,
struggle, points of progress with cleanup
and moving efforts, and challenge as they
cope with so much in this very different
school year,” Scholten said. “We also reflected
on how some of these were what
has become termed ‘COVID kids,’ who
lost some of their traditional school and
normalcy with the pandemic and now
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 39

have been experiencing more change and loss with the
flood.”
There was no guidebook for how to run an ESP program
in a school devastated by flooding and in the throes
of an intensive renovation and rebuilding process, Van
Voorst said.
“We didn’t really even have spaces at the beginning,
and people were so busy just trying to create a space for
students to show up,” Van Voorst said. “So, we thought
it would be helpful for someone like Katie to just pop in
and ask, ‘Hey, how are you doing? If there’s anything you
need, I’m here.’ So, there was a lot of that in the beginning.”
While the mental health check-ins Vander Zwaag has
been providing in the schools this year are not formal therapy
appointments, she draws on her clinical training and
specialization in trauma to provide valuable support to students
and teachers who have been navigating the fallout of
a natural disaster — a range of experiences that can include
trauma, shock, disorientation, grief and deep loss.
According to Scholten, a grief expert, the kind of grief
experienced by many in the wake of a natural disaster has
particular qualities.
“We call that kind of grief ‘disenfranchised loss,’”
Scholten said. “It’s not like there was time to prepare for
this in any way, so it’s just devastating — there’s a big
shock impact. But the ongoing effects will be felt for a
long time.”
Frontlines
In the immediate aftermath of last year’s flood, Creative
Living Center’s Rock Valley location, which did not
sustain damage during the flood, was positioned on the
front lines of flood relief and recovery efforts in the community.
“We had folks who knew we were a long-standing
helping agency, and some walked in off the streets to
seek mental health aid and resources, even in those initial
weeks,” Scholten said. “We were so grateful that we
could remain open throughout the entire time, while also
dispensing our professionally trained counselors to go
out and assist in the temporary shelter and in other community
points.”
As part of initial flood relief efforts, the American Red
Cross established two shelters in Rock Valley, located at
Trinity Christian Reformed Church and Faith Reformed
Church. Eventually, the shelters were consolidated into
one, located at Faith Reformed Church, where mental
health professionals were on hand for walk-in appointments.
In the weeks after the flood, Vander Zwaag and Scholten
began to wonder if there was a way Creative Living
Center could widen its efforts even further to help members
of its hurting community.
“We felt compelled to do more than we were currently
40 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

doing to assist with the impactful flood trauma and effects,”
Scholten said.
In her work as a registered play therapist, Vander Zwaag
encountered children who had been affected by the flooding.
“We talked about how it was so hard, as many of the teachers
and school staff were experiencing their own trauma and
loss, either of a direct or indirect nature, and then would be
entering a new school year, perhaps in a different building or
classroom, along with dealing with children who had loss,”
Scholten said. “That is a triple-trauma factor.”
Trauma triggers
“Despite the many challenges, the schools have worked
incredibly hard to make this year as normal as possible,”
Vander Zwaag said.
She is trained to provide trauma-informed care, and even
during informal interactions, her expertise helps guide her
responses to students and teachers.
“During my time going into the schools, I have answered a
lot of fantastic questions from staff about responses to trauma
and mental health services,” Vander Zwaag said. “Sure,
we can all Google these things, but rarely does Google give
the kind of explanation that an actual human would. I have a
lot of training very specific to trauma and coping that’s been
helpful. I found myself able to answer specific questions regarding
what people or their loved ones were currently facing
post-flood. My feedback has always remained confidential.”
Along with establishing the new ESP program in the
school district, Creative Living Center has continued to
provide formal therapy sessions on site in the schools, a
long-running program that allows students to attend appointments
without needing to leave campus or receive rides
from parents during the school day.
While time can heal, Scholten said the effects of the flooding
will continue to be felt across the Rock Valley community
for years to come.
“I think we’re still in an acute phase here yet,” Scholten
said. “Time is moving on — we’ll reach the one-year anniversary
point, which I think will be significant.”
Still, the effects of trauma remain. According to Scholten,
specific triggers can stir up memories or feelings associated
with a traumatic event, prompting strong physical or emotional
reactions. For instance, the sound of sirens might conjure
the memory of the emergency sirens used last summer
to alert Rock Valley residents to rising floodwaters during
the dark hours of the night.
“Or people worry about spring rains,” Scholten said.
“Trauma triggers can happen at any time, and we’re going
to see this impact for years and years down the road. People
lost homes. There was a life lost.”
Despite the ongoing challenges, Van Voorst is heartened
by the ways his staff members have risen to this year’s challenges
with empathy and grace.
“One of the goals that our board set at the beginning of
the year was to show empathy and gratitude and encouragement
amongst our staff — because we’re all dealing with
something different,” the superintendent said. “And I think
we’ve attained that goal — to be able to just be there for one
another and know that we’re all in different spaces and different
positions at different times of the year.”
While the effects of the flooding will be felt by many for
years to come, there are hopeful signs of outward progress.
In mid-March, the final classrooms that remained displaced
moved back into their permanent homes.
Vander Zwaag likely will not continue the ESP program
into the next academic year, but she said mental health resources
and support are available for anyone who needs
them.
“If anyone in our community feels like they are carrying
weight from the flood that remains much too heavy, I’d
strongly encourage them to reach out to a mental health provider,”
Vander Zwaag said. “We don’t need to walk these
tough roads alone.”
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 41

FLOORING FOR ALL
YOUR SPACES!
BAKKER CRITTER CONTROL
IS NOW
Exceptional Flooring, Professional Service
CALL (712) 470!1073 TODAY!
ROCK VALLEY, IA
VANTHULFLOORING@GMAIL.COM
VISIT OUR
FACEBOOK
Pest Badger Rock Valley
is here to kick pests to
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CONTACT
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712-470-9609
PROUDLY
SERVING
ROCK VALLEY &
SURROUNDING
AREAS!
EST. 1995
712.476.9970
ROCK VALLEY, IA
YOUR LAWN & LANDSCAPE, THE WAY IT SHOULD BE!
When it comes to landscape design and lawn service,
B & K has got you covered. We’d love to help you create an
outdoor area you’ll love to hang out in. We are also the
place to call for lawn and yard maintenance.
Put your trust in us to make your dreams,
big or small, come true.
COME TO US
FOR ALL YOUR
Welding and Farm
Equipment Repair
TERRY’S
REPAIR
Phone 712-476-2696
1005 Creek Blvd., Rock Valley, IA
42 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

45 Years Of
Quality Service
Locally owned auto parts
store that has been serving
Rock Valley for years!
We are proud to open early
so you can have the parts you
need when your shop opens!
712-476-2839
Rock Valley, IA
Established 1980
Your Partner,
Your Profit
• Customized livestock
Nutrition & management
• Forage Preservation
Formulated with Microbial catalyst
• Agronomy products
1002 20th Ave SE
Rock Valley, IA
(712) 476-6088
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 43

BY THE NUMBERS |
100-140
homes:
estimated to be a
complete loss and
will be torn down.
500
homes:
sustained flood
damage across the
community.
Rebuilding
TEXT BY ALEISA SCHAT
FILE PHOTOS
Rock Valley
Many neighborhoods in Rock Valley were
unrecognizable in the days following the
catastrophic flood in the summer of 2024.
Houses were partially collapsed and neighborhoods were
under water or strewed with mud.
In the disaster’s immediate aftermath, rebuilding seemed
impossible. But then the volunteers came, numbering in the
hundreds each day. They descended on the community from
surrounding communities and from bordering states.
For weeks and months, neighbors helped neighbors
haul waterlogged possessions out of their homes, strangers
helped survivors pull out wet carpets and drywall, and
volunteer construction crews got to work.
The process of rebuilding began.
16,816
Number of volunteers who
pitched in with cleanup and
rebuilding efforts following the
flood.
44 SC MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

PRECISION. QUALITY.
PERSONAL.
THAT IS WHAT YOU
CAN EXPECT FROM
MIDWEST PRO MANUFACTURING
27 feet:
The highest-recorded crest
of the Rock River occurred
around midnight on June 22,
2024.
8 feet:
The number of feet above
major flood stage reached by
the Rock River in June 2024.
22 feet:
The previous highest-recorded
crest of the Rock River in
2014.
6,000:
The number of sandbags
added by the city to the levee
system in fewer than six hours.
117
Number of residents and
businesses that submitted
requests for volunteer assistance
through the CrisisCleanup app.
712.476.9279
Rock Valley, IA
CUSTOM GLASS
REPAIR FOR
AUTO, HOME & BUSINESS
At Glass Doctor® of Rock Valley, IA,
we believe that high-quality glass
can protect, preserve, and promote
a home, car, or business. We are
dedicated to helping homeowners,
businesses, and car owners in Rock
Valley, Sioux Center, Orange City,
and the neighboring communities to
leverage glass to their advantage.
OUR SERVICES:
> Home Glass Services:
• Custom Glass Solutions, Custom Mirrors,
Double Pane Windows, Emergency Home
Glass Repair & Replacement, Glass
Tabletops & Custom Shelving, Hydrophobic
Coating Services, Pet Doors, Shower Door
Installation, Window Repair & Replacement.
> Auto Glass Services
• Auto Glass Care, Car Window Replacement,
Windshield Protection Plan, Windshield
Repair and Replacement.
> Business Glass Repair Services
• Advance Measurement System, Commercial
Door Closer Service, Emergency Business
Glass Services, Industry Glass Solutions,
Security Film, Storefront Doors
Midwest Pro is celebrating 20 years of
dedication, innovation, and success! We are
excited to announce our expansion project,
reinforcing our commitment to excellence. This
growth will allow us to serve our customers even
better. Thank you to our employees, customers &
vendors for being part of this journey—we look
forward to a bright future together.
www.midwestpromfg.com
Established 2005
HOME REPAIR BUSINESS REPAIR CAR REPAIR
GLASS DOCTOR® - DIAGNOSING AND TREATING
ALL YOUR GLASS NEEDS!
FEEL CONFIDENT IN CALLING A COMPANY YOU CAN TRUST!
712-476-5320 | Rock Valley, IA | Est. 1984
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 45

EVERY ROOM HAS
IT'S OWN VOICE
Make an Impression
Sunshine Foods is your locally
owned grocery store with
high quality foods, friendly
services, and great prices!
DOWNLOAD OUR APP TODAY!
First Impressions is your stop for
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Vote for Deb Kempema in the Best of N'West
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Whether you need a new table centerpiece, new furniture for the living room, a new
paint color in the bathroom or a whole new look for your home or business,
First Impressions can help you make the first impression you want in your home.
Established 1991
712-476-2945 • Rock Valley, IA • firstimpressionstogo.com
MON-SAT
7AM-9PM
SUNDAY - CLOSED
ROCK VALLEY, IA
712-476-5326
Something special for every person
custom
WEDDING PRODUCTS
We create, you celebrate!
See our online catalog for
a variety of design ideas.
nwestiowa.com/printing
CHECK OUT
OUR WEBSITE!
on any occasion!
1447 MAIN ST | ROCK VALLEY, IA. 51247 | (712) 476-2588
712-631-4825
printshop@information.com
227 Ninth Street • Sheldon, IA
46 RV MAGAZINE | SPRING 2025

,I. ft:·
V
•
Support Local
SUPPORT ROCK VALLEY
Our community took a hit with the flood and summer of 2024, but our
businesses are back stronger than ever! Our residents and businesses have
shown incredible resilience after the flood, and we are so proud to
continue to support them. We invite you to come shop, eat, and support
our downtown and all our businesses in Rock Valley this year!
a 712.476.5707 e info@cityofckvalley.com • cityofrockvalley.com
SPRING 2025 | RV MAGAZINE 47

Enriching Our
Enriching Our
Community!
Community!
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1230 Valley Dr. | Rock Valley | 712.476.2746 | | peoples-ebank.com
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| | 712.476.2746
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| |
| peoples-ebank.com
peoples-ebank.com
ember D
ember D
ember D