Modeled after the historic Civilian Conservation Corps and reimagined for the challenges we face today, the Civilian Restoration Corps (“CRC”) is an innovative, replicable state-run program that will be spearheaded, tested, and proven in Iowa, then offered to other states through a leasing model following its success.

Ten Teams to Choose From
Tens of Thousands of New, High-Paying Jobs

Through six legislative acts (“Acts”), the Rural Iowa Revitalization Act, Crop Diversity and Enrichment Act, Iowa’s Right to Repair Act, Right to Homestead Act, Iowa Innovation Act, and the Set the Captives Free! Act, the State of Iowa will allocate funding to lift off ten workforce development programs (“initiatives“) spearheaded by the CRC.

If I am elected, Iowans will be able to sign up to join an initiative of their choosing via their local county office or CRC’s online portal.

Each of the ten initiatives is allocated funding by different Acts, as follows.

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i. Right to Homestead Act™
A Right Guaranteed by the 9th Amendment
A Plan to Fix the Housing Crisis that Puppet Politicians Don’t Talk About

The first of these Acts, the Right to Homestead Act, authorizes the creation of the Gardens Across Iowa!™ and Housing Helpers™ teams. It also sets forth:

1.) A buyback program, modelled after the Cobell Settlement, to create community gardens in every town and city, and sustainable villages to help the homeless,

2.) An unprecedented suit in equity to “take” rental properties owned by out-of-state landlords; thus keeping approximately $2.4 B in-state annually. Although this idea might get balked at, when you look at the numbers, and what this is doing to our communities, the answer becomes clear: to finally use eminent domain in a way that actually helps the people.

🌱 Gardens Across Iowa!™

The Gardens Across Iowa!™ (“Gardens!™“) initiative is one of ten initiatives applicants may apply for through the Civilian Restoration Corps (“CRC”) work relief program, based on their personal preferences and interests.

Allocated funding via the Right to Homestead Act, Gardens!™, the purpose is multifaceted:

1.) To ensure every Iowan has a place to legally grow food

2.) To end Iowa’s food insecurity crisis

3.) to create a statewide in-school gardening program to offset school lunch costs and teach valuable skills to youth

4.) To improve Iowa’s economy by producing from both urban and rural areas.

📊 Estimated GDP Impact

 

Click the image below to learn more, or scroll down to continue reading A Pretty Big Deal.

🏠🤝Housing Helpers™

brings houses, apartments, and businesses up to code, and makes improvements modeled by renown Environmental Studies Professor Frank Schiavo in order to reduce energy bills for all Iowans. They will also be on-call to ensure every business and government building in Iowa is handicap accessible. Also, in collaboration with The SolarBerry Brigade™, Gardens Across Iowa!™, and commissioned experts, Housing Helpers will create cob and papercrete housing to build low-cost sustainable villages to help the homeless. Instead of creating a new organization from scratch, we allow developers and renovators to become “CRC-certified” in order to up their hiring capacity, and gain access to CRC Vouchers to help pay for employee lunches and purchase top-of-the-line building materials. This allows CRC to build a coalition of businesses on a common mission: to restore and revitalize every town and farm in Iowa.

An unprecedented housing plan: Iowans ship an estimated $2.4 B per year to out-of-state (“absentee”) landlords. Southeast Iowa is getting bought up by Florida residents, and the Des Moines Metro is also getting bought up to extract wealth. My administration will work to use eminent domain in a way that actually helps the people, by taking rental properties owned by out-of-state landlords, and helping renters become responsible owners of those spaces.

Read the Right to Homestead Act

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ii. Rural Iowa Revitalization Act™
High Paying Jobs Renewing Rural Iowa
Reconnecting Urban and Rural Iowans

🧑‍🌾FarmHire™ will rebuild barns and outbuildings, and provides farmhands to rural Iowans. Click the image below to learn more, or scroll down to continue reading A Pretty Big Deal.

🥾♿🛠️💲Trail Trimmers™ will revitalizes hiking trials, restroom areas, signage, and canoe, kayak, and boating entry points, and campsites throughout the state in order to bolster our tourism industry and improve the lives of outdoors enthusiasts.

🛠️💪Pothole Patrol™ will be on-call to restore Iowa’s crumbling roads and bridges. Similarly to Housing Helpers™, Pothole Patrol consists of a coalition of CRC-certified businesses. Once certified, they can up their hiring capacity through CRC, and gain access to CRC Vouchers to pay for employee lunches and purchase top-of-the-line, CRC-grade products.

Read the Rural Iowa Revitalization Act

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iii. Crop Diversity and Enrichment Act™
Getting Farmers in on Incoming Crop Booms
Renewable Energy, Job Creation, and Enriching Iowa Farmers

One of six legislatives acts that enables all parts of Civilian Restoration Corps (“CRC”) to work in tandem with one another is the Crop Diversity and Enrichment Act. This Act allocates funding and a commission to oversee the development of two initiatives applicants may sign up for via their local county office or through CRC’s online portal: MycoFuel Engineers™ and The SolarBerry Brigade™.

🍄MycoFuel Engineers™

MycoFuel Engineers™ captures farm runoff via growing mushrooms around the perimeter of farms where runoff is likely to occur. Once saturated, the fungi are harvested, dried, ground, and compressed into combustible fuel pellets for industrial use. These pellets demonstrate favorable combustion properties and can be further enhanced with agricultural waste substrates. The system creates a win-win: farmers earn revenue from what would otherwise be pollutants, and Iowa’s waterways stay clean.

This cutting-edge technique, pioneered by renowned mycologist Paul Stamets, is called mycoremediation. Mycoremediation has been successfully used to remediate large-scale oil spills in San Francisco and even clean radioactive waste sites — showcasing its potential to protect rivers and streams from chemical runoff while creating renewable energy. My administration will offer to commission Stamets to come to Iowa to help guide this startup.

Learn More About MycoFuel Engineers™

🌞🍒The SolarBerry Brigade™

The SolarBerry Brigade™ purchases pokeweed berries, spinach, and other plant-based materials from farmers, then manufactures from these materials using proven methods. Additionally, the purchases hemp to manufacture batteries which demonstrate superior efficiency and thermal stability to lithium-ion cell batteries. Collectively 

The Brigade works directly with Housing Helpers™ to install highly efficient solar panels and hemp-powered batteries, transforming agricultural crops into tools for energy independence. Farmers aren’t just suppliers—they’re pioneers—earning revenue from bioenergy materials while leading Iowa into a new era of decentralized renewable power. Early adopters stand to benefit from a crop-driven clean energy boom, aligning environmental stewardship with economic opportunity.

Learn More About The SolarBerry Brigade™

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iv. Iowa Innovation and Stock Exchange Act™
Excellent Ideas Deserve Lucrative Payouts
Fostering Ingenuity and Securing Patents for Inventors,
and Investment Opportunities for Every Iowan

🧠The Inventor’s Guild™ assists Iowans by helping them turn good ideas patented products ready for market. As a return on investment, a percentage of royalties generated from all patents help feed The Iowa Public Credit Union in order to subsidize SondraCare™, Housing Helpers™, Pothole Patrol™, The SolarBerry Brigade™, and procure grants for future inventors.

💳CRC Voucher Program provides each of the CRC teams with credit to purchase crew meals and CRC-approved supplies from Iowa businesses. My administration will ensure that only high quality, efficient, state-of-the-art products will be approved for use by CRC, and that businesses will keep them in stock. Any Iowans who discovers a superior product CRC should be using, they may alert their local branch. Teams will test the product, and if it is found to indeed be superior, the previous product will be removed from the list and replaced with the new product. Whenever that product is purchased through the CRC Voucher program, that person will receive a commission. This ensures CRC Teams are supporting Iowa businesses and incentivizes participation in constantly helping to improve CRC. 

💳🏦The Iowa Public Credit Union the country’s first publicly-owned credit union. Inspired by North Dakota’s model of a state-owned bank, which helped them whether financial hardships time and time again, the idea of having the first state-run credit union takes this idea to the next level. It aims to serve Iowans by reinvesting legal settlements and patent proceeds into a community-focused financial institution, subsidizing SondraCare™, Housing Helpers™, Pothole Patrol™, The SolarBerry Brigade™, and other programs designed to uplift the general public — everything from schools to libraries, to roads and bridges. The primary purpose of this credit union is to make sure Iowa is no longer overly-dependent on federal subsidies. As we have seen from the Trump administration, these subsidies are not something we can depend on. Iowa’s credit union is Iowa’s path to securing financial independence and ensuring no Iowan gets left behind.

💰🏛️📈The Iowa CRC Stock Exchange™ introduces a community-owned investment platform (ICIX) and a 1% financial transaction tax to fund Iowa’s Civilian Restoration Corps. Essentially, it allows Iowans to buy stock in their favorite CRC initiatives (e.g. Gardens Across Iowa, Housing Helpers, Pothole Patrol) and recommended products used by CRC, which helps raise capital to get them kickstarted. It blends economic reform with grassroots governance to create a transparent, locally driven alternative to Wall Street-style finance. Once CRC is fully operational, we’ve finished troubleshooting it, and we’re ready to lease it out to other states, the stock exchange will be opened up to the public. Iowans will get first dibs, and you know what that means.

Read the Iowa Innovation Act

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v. Iowa’s Right to Repair Act™
Makes Farming More Enjoyable for Farmers
Bringing Manufacturing Jobs to Iowa while Uplifting Restaurants and Farmers

🌿♻️🔧🚜Biofuel Mechanics™ manufactures diesel engines designed to run on recycled fryer grease from restaurants — aka “greasel“. This proven technique can be done to nearly any diesel engine in order to have it running on grease in no time. Biofuel Mechanics will also manufacture farm equipment designed to be fixed by farmers. Instead of locking farmers out from being able to fix their own equipment, Iowa will lead the country in building user-friendly farm equipment — exactly what farmers want in their fields.

🍟🚜Iowa FryerForce™ purchases used fryer grease from restaurants, purifies it using a centrifuge, and sells it to farmers cheaper than gasoline.

Read Iowa’s Right to Repair Act

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vi. Set the Captives Free! Act™

Offers incarcerated Iowans the option to enroll in an early release program via joining a CRC team of their choice. For every one hour of labor worked for CRC, their sentence is reduced by one hour. This rehabilitation-first program is built on principles of dignity, respect, and the idea that people deserve a second chance. It explicitly rejects any form of exploitative labor, instead treating each individual as capable of transformation and worthy of support. CRC work sites are staffed with Peace Officers and Mental Health Specialists to ensure safety and encourage healing, and enrollees are covered by SondraCare™. Inmates who participate successfully will also receive ongoing reintegration support upon release, including housing support and the option to continue working with the CRC or finding help with job placement. By prioritizing mercy, accountability, and practical service, the Act has the potential to annually reduce taxes by approximately $300 M while adding to the state’s GDP and restoring lives and strengthening communities. Notice: CRC will not exploit immigrant detention center labor! Click the image below to learn more, or scroll down to continue reading A Pretty Big Deal.

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vii. Two Important Factors

These two important factors make CRC practical and real economic drivers that empower local communities:

1. CRC Restores Old Buildings

CRC won’t be building new buildings if we don’t have to. Instead we’ll be looking to restore old buildings that aren’t being used, and could bring life back into towns if fixed up and shown some love. This will be the first task of Housing Helpers™, which again is a coalition of Iowa builders and renovators — not a “from scratch” team. Creating hubs for Biofuel Mechanics™ and Iowa FryerForce™ will be top priority, as these will be big economic drivers for Iowa’s forthcoming economy.

Each Initiative is Designed to Break Away to become a Self-Sustaining
2. Worker-Owned Cooperative

Once a local hub (e.g. Iowa FryerForce, Biofuel Mechanics) proves successful, CRC allows it to “break free” and become a worker-owned cooperative, where each employee owns one share and has equal voting rights. This transition fosters long-term sustainability, equity, and community resilience. 

🍞 Alvarado Street Bakery: A Cooperative Success Story

A powerful example of this model is Alvarado Street Bakery in Petaluma, California. Originally founded in 1977 and reorganized as a cooperative in 1981, Alvarado has flourished by embracing democratic ownership and sustainability:

• Each of its 100+ worker-owners holds one share and one vote, shaping decisions from wages to reinvestment strategies (Hay, 2009).
• The bakery produces over 40,000 loaves daily in a solar-powered facility, with 40% of its energy sourced from 1,722 rooftop solar panels (The Business Download, 2022).
• Employees earn living wages averaging $65,000–$70,000, with full benefits and profit-sharing (Hay, 2009).
• Alvarado has been featured in documentaries and praised for its ethical, eco-conscious practices (Folbre, 2009).

This success story illustrates how CRC’s cooperative pathway can lead to thriving, worker-led enterprises that benefit both employees and the broader community.

To put this into perspective, essentially money that would go toward a CEO under a sole proprietorship business model, would instead be more equitably distributed amongst employees. Under the worker-owned cooperative business model, employees elect and set the pay for their CEO. Here’s a photo I took from inside the BART station in 2015:

References (APA 7th Edition):

Folbre, N. (2009, November 23). The case for worker co-ops. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/opinion/23folbre.html

Hay, J. (2009, October 1). Michael Moore’s new film puts spotlight on Petaluma company. The Press Democrat. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/michael-moores-new-film-puts-spotlight-on-petaluma-company/

The Business Download. (2022, March 7). The story of ‘America’s solar bakery’