HARTLEY — Few things slow down Andy Bales.
Bales has made a career of working to solve tough human issues, including combating homelessness on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, a neighborhood with Los Angeles County’s densest concentration of people experiencing homelessness. And he’s done so despite challenges that would strain the most determined social crusader.
It was in L.A. on a hot day in 2014 that the Iowa transplant, then president and CEO of the Union Rescue Mission, waded through garbage with an already injured right leg while handing out bottled water to people in need. He contracted a flesh-eating infection that ultimately required doctors to amputate his lower leg in 2016.
Then, in 2021, doctors had to remove his left lower leg, “beaten up” from carrying his weight, a condition worsened by complications from Type 1 diabetes.
The Los Angeles Times reported Bales was back to work the day after his second amputation. And despite his medical struggles, from 2017 to 2019, accompanied by his wife Bonnie, he made annual bike rides from Los Angeles to the state capital, Sacramento — a 500-mile journey — to raise funds for the mission.
Now back in Iowa to run the Children and Families Urban Movement in Des Moines’ River Bend neighborhood, his resolve and grit continues as he rides his second RAGBRAI.
Just before 11 a.m. Sunday, July 20, Day 1 of RAGBRAI 52, Bales, 66, sporting a blue CFUM jersey, cranked his hand-powered recumbent bike into Hartley, the meeting town midway between Orange City and Milford on a nearly 73-mile journey. He’d endured stiff headwinds and an aching backside, but said he was otherwise looking forward to the second half of the day.
‘He’s a very giving person’
The CFUM team, made up of himself and his wife Bonnie, is seeking to raise $10,000 for the children who attend the organization’s summer and after-school programs.
Bales has spent decades aiding children from underserved communities and people experiencing homelessness, starting in Des Moines, his hometown, at the Door of Faith recovery center, today part of Hope Ministries.
“I’ve just always had a heart for the underdog, the vulnerable, the struggling,” he said. “I just cannot bear a child going hungry or someone spending the night on the streets… either wet or hot streets of L.A. or the cold streets of Des Moines. My heart won’t let me leave people in that condition without an offer of help.”
In 1999, Bales and his wife packed up their van to move their young family to Pasadena, California. Andy Bales, in an early sign of his determined character, said he set out to “solve LA’s homelessness crisis.”
A few years in, Bales was hired to run the Union Rescue Mission. Considered the oldest such organization in Los Angeles and one of the largest in the country, the Christian nonprofit provides shelter and food to adults and children in Skid Row.
“My heart was really with the people on the streets,” he said.
His wife said his faith-driven devotion to families and children has always been a part of him.
“He’s a very giving person,” Bonnie Bales said. “Just doesn’t know a stranger.”
11 years later, returning to RAGBRAI with a mission
Aching to spend time with their grandchildren, the couple returned to the Des Moines metro area in 2024. Bales, who said he was unprepared to retire, took the job as executive director of CFUM, which supports children and families by providing meals, after-school programs and educational opportunities.
The organization marked its 30th anniversary of formal incorporation in 2022, but its roots date back more than 50 years to 1968, when its Breakfast Club program started providing meals.
The Baleses’ first RAGBRAI was in 2014. They didn’t anticipate repeating the trip — “we’re not getting any younger,” Andy Bales said. But 11 years later, the duo, who live in Clive, felt the pull to return to the ride to spread the word about CFUM.
For Bales, his group’s mission with the children in Des Moines is the same as Union Rescue Mission’s in Los Angeles: “to do whatever it takes to make sure they have a successful life.”
Bales said Sunday he’d already raised $1,000 of his $10,000 goal. In addition to the organization’s summer program for children, the funds will aid an after-school care program the organization plans to expand to Moulton and Madison elementary schools this fall.
“It’s not that I just have 10 grandkids,” Bales said, “I really feel like the 130 kids at CFUM are my adopted grandkids. … I just want to keep doing what I can to make lots of kids comfortable and happy and have hope and think about possibilities for a very bright future.”
Virginia Barreda is the Des Moines city government and Polk County reporter for the Register. She can be reached at vbarreda@dmreg.com. Follow her on X at @vbarreda2.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Andy Bales was back at work the day after losing his only leg. Now he’s riding RAGBRAI
Reporting by Virginia Barreda, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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