Tom Walz still works to get things done

IOWA CITY - On any given day, Tom Walz can be found in Mick's Workshop in East Iowa City, among a clutter of chairs, tables and sawdust.

On Tuesday, a cool August breeze crept into the workshop, slowly drying the coat of varnish Walz had applied to a chair with delicate brush strokes. The chair was another of Walz's refurbishing project that eventually will be sold to supplement his not-for-profit efforts.

From chairs to online art galleries, Walz has been taking on one challenge after another for the past 15 years since his retirement to help area residents in need.

He created and directed two not-for-profit organizations that provide work opportunities for those with disabilities, helped establish an online art gallery to showcase and sell the creations of lesser-known artists with disabilities and still tackles the occasional carpentry or woodworking project to help finance his volunteer efforts.

But after a recent diagnosis with kidney cancer, Walz is looking to those he's met in his 82 years to lend a helping hand.

And in true Walz fashion, the money isn't for him. Rather, it's to be used to carry on his efforts after he's gone.

'It got me thinking,” Walz said of his diagnosis. 'Your body is getting ready to surrender or fulfill its course, so what do you got to do to get this done? Well, we just started the gallery ...

and I don't want to start something that's not able to be finished. So I think I've got enough time to build this thing.”

In June, Walz underwent surgery to remove his right kidney, which had been found to contain a malignant renal mass. The procedure that was deemed a success, but Walz said the diagnosis reminded him that he won't be around forever.

To make the Iowa Disability Creative Works Gallery financially stable, Walz wants to create an endowment fund of sorts, by asking for donations to sustain the project in his absence.

Needing a target amount, Walz said he wants to raise $1 for every volunteer hour he has logged since his 2000 retirement from the University of Iowa.

That would put it at $39,000.

'All I've got to earn is $6,000 a year, that gives me five to six years at least,” Walz said. 'While it isn't earthshaking, it's still voluntarism, it's still worth acknowledging.”

Barry Morrow and ‘Bill'

So what has Walz been up to these past 15 years?

The short answer would be 'a lot.”

Walz was born in the Minnesota iron-mining town of Cayuna, which today is home to a few hundred people. Raised by his grandparents and his uncle, Walz strove for an education and - after spending two years serving in the U.S. Army after being drafted in 1954 - earned a master's degree in social work from St. Louis University in 1958 and his Ph.D. in social work from the University of Minnesota in 1966.

His involvement in overseas education landed him the position as the first Peace Corps group to go to Honduras and, in 1964, he returned to teaching in the states at the University of Minnesota, eventually working at the University of Iowa.

Walz's dedication to the elderly and those with disabilities actually started back in 1974, when he was director of the UI School of Social Work and hired a young man named Barry Morrow, who eventually would go on to write the screenplays for the award winning TV movie 'Bill” and the Academy Award-winning movie, 'Rain Man.”

Morrow arrived in Iowa City with Bill Sackter, of whom Morrow was legal guardian. Sackter was born mentally handicapped and had spent 44 years of his life in a mental institution before meeting Morrow.

To provide Sackter with employment, Walz, Morrow and others created Wild Bill's Coffee Shop in UI's North Hall, and Sackter found his calling.

'Once you got to know him, he was just such a beautiful man ...

You couldn't help but love him,” Walz recalled.

'It just taught me that you can't tell a book by its cover ...

Beneath people who have been totally ignored, neglected, put away, there is a beauty that needs to be shared with the world.”

Sackter died in 1983, but the impression had been made, and Walz was destined to continue to serve those ignored or neglected.

In 1999 Walz created and directed the Extend the Dream Foundation (EDF), which ran Wild Bill's Coffee Shop when it relocated to Gilbert Street and again to its current home at 730 S. Dubuque St.

EDF also became a business incubator of sorts, by providing the foundation and support for residents with disabilities to create and pursue their entrepreneurial prospects. At its height, EDF was supporting at least nine local businesses, including a bakery, antiques shop and workshop.

‘A tiny bit of applause'

With EDF focusing more on running the coffee shop, Walz created the Disabilities Enterprise Foundation in 2011, which operates Mick's Workshop, a furniture and carpentry business that helps fund the not-for-profit and its art gallery.

The gallery is Walz's latest creation, which came together earlier this year with help from the DEF board of directors.

As with Sackter's coffee shop more than 40 years ago, the gallery is there to provide a working outlet to those with disabilities and help showcase their work.

'You want to make public their talents so they can enjoy at least a tiny bit of applause and at the same time maybe have a way of augmenting their income,” Walz said. 'So hopefully the gallery is going to do that.”

Maggie Burns, who lives with bipolar disorder and recently was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, helps manage the online gallery and showcases artwork on the website.

She's only known Walz for four years now but said he is one of the most influential figures in her life.

'The first thing that comes to mind is just how hardworking he is. Second would be his ability to connect with people,” Burns said. 'He doesn't question their abilities, he presents ideas and tries to get them involved in stuff, even if they have doubts, he doesn't doubt people.”

As long as he is physically able, Walz said he will continue supporting the Disabilities Enterprise Foundation and the not-for-profit's art gallery and, as he has done since he started, he'll likely continue downplay just how much of an impact he has had on the community.

'It did more for me than it did for the people I was purportedly helping. I love being busy, I love refinishing furniture,” he said, taking a brief break from applying another coat of finish to a chair. 'I just created an environment where I could survive and at the same time do a little good. It's not like a sacrifice, it's my version of golf.”