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When Maria Mendoza moved to Des Moines from New Mexico two years ago, the local New Iowan Center helped her get a job at Mrs. Clark’s Foods in Ankeny. When she was laid off last December, it put her in touch with a program that helped cover her electricity bill and since then has passed along information about job opportunities.

“They are wonderful human beings,” Mendoza said, referring to the three employees who work out of the Iowa Workforce Development office at 430 E. Grand Ave. in Des Moines. “They help everyone, not just me. … I hope they never leave us, because it’s hard to trust somebody.”

As Indianapolis-based Mycogen Seeds’ operations in Huxley have grown rapidly in the past couple of years, the company has started to rely on migrant workers in addition to college and high school kids to help during the busy summer months. The New Iowan Center in Des Moines put Keith Pietig, operations leader, in touch with a contractor that will supply about 20 workers from Texas and Florida this month. The center also is helping find housing for the workers and will provide translation services if needed.

The New Iowan Centers have evolved into providing these kinds of services and much more during their nearly 10-year history. With unemployment rising, their support are in even higher demand.

In fiscal year 2008, which ended June 30, the 12 centers throughout the state served 13,257 people as part of about 200,000 people Iowa Workforce Development served statewide, according to Venus Vendoures Walsh, western Iowa regional supervisor of the New Iowan Centers, whose territory includes the Des Moines office. They offered 42,591 services and 5,048 trainings.

But since January, the number of people just coming to the Des Moines office has jumped from about 100 a month to 200, she said. “It’s very busy nonstop. Any targeted group that is not in the mainstream, is not receiving services, that’s what we try to help with.”

The centers came out of the Iowa 2010 Commission as one way to help address a looming shortage of workers in the state. The idea is to “help bridge that communication gap between communities and newcomers, whether the newcomers come from another country or just moved across the state,” Walsh said. The program is designed to help people feel welcome so that they stay and become integrated into steady jobs and the community.

The first New Iowan Centers were started as pilot projects in Sioux City and Muscatine in 2000 with an annual budget of $160,000. In 2002, Iowa Workforce added an office in Ottumwa, and with an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor spread over 2005 to 2008, it opened centers in Council Bluffs, Des Moines, Marshalltown and Mount Pleasant.

Today the New Iowan Centers have an annual budget of $1.5 million and a staff of about 21 under the Iowa Workforce Development umbrella. Most offices have only one or two employees, all of whom are bilingual in English and Spanish; Des Moines is unique in having three staff members.

With more people seeking help, the New Iowan Centers have focused more this year on helping people file for unemployment, find a job or obtain housing, rather than on cultural and other group trainings. Most clients are Latino with language barriers, so helping them obtain employment has become much more difficult with greater competition for fewer positions, Walsh said.

Among the services the centers offer individuals are information on job search, training on interview techniques, support in learning English or studying for the citizenship exam, and information on the immigration process. The staff even helps with training on basic cultural practices, such as when to take out the trash, how to register children in school and whether it is OK to park your car on the lawn.

But the centers are as much a resource for employers and communities as for individuals. With employers, much of the New Iowan Centers’ work revolves around cultural training, translation services and information on employers’ and employees’ rights. Issues include helping employers understand why a worker might not realize he or she needs to call in sick rather than just not show up at work or why younger workers have different needs than older generations.

Though the centers do not provide immigration advice, they do listen to issues and try to help with educating communities on hot issues, such as the H1N1 virus, when many Latino immigrants reported their children being bullied at school because of the flu’s reported tie to Mexico.

In 2003, the New Iowan Centers also took over the Migrant & Seasonal Farm Workers Program. Six migrant outreach staffers are based in Denison, Des Moines with outreach to Perry, Storm Lake, Ottumwa, Iowa City and Mason City; they travel to worksites to help migrant workers with issues such as finding food and housing, applying for year-round positions, making sure signed contracts are being followed and answering questions related to labor issues.

As one of two regional supervisors, Walsh spends much of her time providing three or four regional trainings a year, making sure the staff is aware of new regulations or changes in labor law and other useful information they can share with people needing assistance. She also provides a three-hour diversity-training course to employers and other groups.

Walsh has had plenty of experience with labor issues, having started out in 1999 answering 100 calls a day for Iowa Workforce’s job hotline. She then helped answer letters from people interested in moving to the state after the Iowa 2010 Commission report came out. She joined the New Iowan Centers in 2005, taking on a new mission.

“We consider ourselves to be investigators,” Walsh said. “If we don’t know the answer, we will find the answer, and it is our goal to get people connected to their communities so that the communities in Iowa can thrive.”