AMES, Iowa — Good Park sits in the shadow of the Des Moines skyline, just a stone’s throw from Drake University.
It’s named for Charles Good, a 19th-century Des Moines businessman who has been dead for more than 125 years.
But Good has left a legacy that vastly exceeds a singular eponymous park. To many Latter-day Saints, he is regarded to this day as a humble yet heroic example of compassion.
In the summer of 1856, the Willie Handcart Company of more than 500 Latter-day Saint migrants passed through Iowa on their trek west to Utah. The company would eventually encounter disaster in the form of disease and severe winter weather, resulting in an intense rescue mission and the loss of 68 lives.
When Good came across the pioneer travelers, he was drawn to the company’s children walking across the plains to their faraway new home.
“His love for children was remarkable,” a county history said of Good. “He could not endure to see them suffer.”
Desiring to do anything to help ease their certain burden, Good presented the company with 15 pairs of children’s boots from the store he owned. The children’s road ahead would be lined with trials and tragedy, but perhaps having covered feet could minimize their suffering, even if only just a tad.
“It’s just the way that Iowans naturally react to people in need,” said Greg Welch, a BYU fan and Iowa resident who currently serves on the board of the BYU Alumni Association’s Des Moines chapter.
“When you see kids in need, they should be helped. So we want to remember that that’s how Charles Good was looking at the world 170 years ago, and that’s still the right way we think things should be done.”
Good’s good deed has been chronicled in various Latter-day Saint histories and publications, and this past weekend, it served as inspiration for an outpouring of charity just 35 miles north of the park that bears his name.
Paying it forward
For the past year, Welch led the organization effort for BYU’s alumni tailgate ahead of the Cougars’ football clash with Iowa State. Since 2019, these pregame events have involved a service project to benefit the local community as part of BYU’s Cougs Care initiative.
For Welch and his team, they saw their tailgate as the perfect opportunity to honor Good and repay his community for his past goodwill.
“It was impressive to us that (Good’s kind act) happened here in Des Moines. We wanted to make the connection from both sides,” Welch said. “BYU fans coming to Iowa might know about that story, but we wanted Iowans to know that they were already a part of the story with their kindness, Charles Good’s kindness to the barefoot kids walking from Iowa to Salt Lake. It felt so natural for us, because that’s how Iowans behave. When they see people in need, they help them.”
Thus, BYU fans attending the alumni tailgate in Ames this past Saturday were invited to bring new or gently used children’s shoes, coats and blankets to donate to the nearby Johnston Partnership, a charitable organization that “(provides) area residents with access to basic needs such as food and clothing,” according to the group’s website.
Cougar Nation didn’t disappoint. Many of the 1,000-plus fans at the tailgate arrived with the requested supplies, as the sea of royal blue — along with plenty of Iowa State fans and other locals — produced literal tons of winter warmth.
Good had given 15 pairs of boots to the Willie company children. Inspired by him, BYU’s tailgate resulted in far more than 15 full boxes of donations.
But the service effort began long before the actual tailgate. In the week leading up to the Cougars’ visit to Ames, dozens of pairs of shoes were brought to Johnston Partnership, with even more footwear and other necessities purchased online via the project’s Amazon wishlist along with thousands of dollars worth of pure cash donated as well.
‘BYU shows up’
“BYU shows up. It’s been amazing,” said Andrea Cook, executive director of the Johnston Partnership. “I can’t even believe how many people I’ve heard from.
“... I’m going to say that BYU has set a new standard for how people need to participate (in charity work).”
BYU’s alumni tailgates have been described as “parties with a purpose” — as Cougar fans come together to celebrate their football team and enjoy festive fellowship, they too will heed the university’s charge to “go forth to serve.”
“Our alumni chapters, our alumni groups, our alumni individuals and families, they’re prewired to serve, and they want to,” said Michael Johanson, executive director of the BYU Alumni Association. “They’re already doing it, and if we can give an opportunity to put the good in a room, then the good gets better. The good exists all over BYU’s communities, all over the place.
“When we leave (the tailgate), when the football team leaves hopefully with the win, the families stay here. They still have their community interests. They are still engaged in building around them. They still have their trials and challenges, but now they have a moment, I call the flywheel. They have the flywheel opportunity to continue to serve in great, meaningful ways that last a whole lot longer than a tailgate.”
Much like how Good’s boots donation has inspired further service in the decades since, BYU has seen its tailgate charity drives spark similar efforts at other institutions.
When the Cougars traveled to West Virginia in 2023, Mountaineers officials observed the pregame service project and went on to organize one of their own for homecoming the following year, bringing donated teddy bears and blankets to young patients at the children’s hospital in Morgantown.
For the recent rivalry showdown between BYU and Utah, the two schools teamed up to “tackle hunger together” through a drive for food banks in Salt Lake and Utah counties.
But as much as the service is blessing the lives of individuals in need, Johanson believes it has also greatly blessed the lives of those performing the service themselves.
The flywheel effect
“The miracle is when we go home and we serve our family, we serve our neighbor, we reach out and we respond to that prompting that says, ‘Hey, go make that phone call. Go make that visit. Go minister,’” Johanson said. “I mean, you get (thousands of) people now who have this moment, and they can now go home and serve more and more every day. That’s the flywheel, it just expands and expands and expands and expands.”
BYU began its organized tailgate service efforts in 2019 for the Cougars’ trip to face Tennessee in Knoxville — ironically, the debut project was also a coat drive.
Saturday in Ames was the 30th Cougs Care project, and considering the local context and history with Good, it was clearly one of the most rewarding — not that BYU gained anything from the service, but rather that the principle of small and simple things leading to great results still rings true today, and that Good’s love continues to persist and inspire.
“(Good’s story is) a good reminder, it’s been almost 200 years, and it’s still applicable today, that there’s children who are going without,“ Cook said. ”And the fact that (BYU fans) recognize that and connect that back to history to today is phenomenal. It’s absolutely phenomenal.”
Before Saturday, BYU’s football team hadn’t played a game in the state of Iowa since 1974. In a way, the tailgate service project was the Cougars’ initial reintroduction to Iowa State’s community as a fellow Big 12 member, which Welch hopes will be received in the spirit of unity — just like Good would have wanted.
“I hope the biggest impression we leave on Iowa State fans is that we are their neighbors,” Welch said. “There are already Cougar fans that live in Iowa with them and that our kids go to school with their kids. We are in the community with them, and we want to build the community together.”
