Bahá’ís Honored as “Iowans of the Week” in U.S. House of Representatives, September 3, 2021

Submitted by Diane Findlay, August 2024

Early in 2021, as the Covid pandemic was heating up, our interfaith monthly devotions/book discussion/community service group, “Read & Serve,” was looking for a service project we could offer that didn’t involve much interpersonal exposure. As you’ll read in the piece below, we ended up approaching our County Sheriff about helping to offer books to inmates at the Dallas County Jail. He eagerly agreed to work with us and we began to greatly increase and organize the existing collection and maintain the circulating carts of books. We were surprised when this small effort began to attract media attention locally and, eventually nationally as well. Along the way, staff at the office of our U.S. Congresswoman Cindy Axne saw an article and contacted us about it. The staffer interviewed Bob Findlay by phone and mentioned that there are regular opportunities on the floor of the U.S. House for legislators to read into the official record stories about things their constituents are doing.

The interview went fine but we never heard anything more about it and assumed Axne’s staff had found more interesting things to focus on. Then I stumbled upon this article by accident. What a surprise to see the results of this interview, from three years ago, pop up on an internet search! Our project was, indeed, shared on the floor of the House with this lovely piece that talks about our Faith as the inspiration for the Read & Serve group. While the Jail library service, which we’re still doing monthly, is very much a joint effort of the Read & Serve group, Axne chose to honor Bob and me by name as “Iowans of the Week.”

Here’s the announcement from the Congressional Record: https://swiowatimes.com/stories/619502417-honoring-robert-and-diane-findlay-as-iowans-of-the-week-published-by-congressional-record-in-the-extensions-of-remarks-section-on-sept-3-2021#.