DES MOINES, Iowa —

A Drake University dining hall cashier is discovering just how much her student customers love her.

“Brian, how are you?” shouts Marietta Jackson to a student heading in for lunch.

When was the last time a lunch lady greeted you by name?

“Hi, Anthony. How are you?” as another favorite student enters the dining hall.

Jackson is no ordinary lunch lady. For 15 years, she's been a powerful light that brightens the Hubbell Dining Hall in Des Moines, Iowa, on the campus of Drake University. She makes everybody that passes her cashier station feel right at home.

“She is an amazing woman. She is always so kind. She takes care of us and always makes you feel special,” said Drake student Chris Davis.

Jackson says with a laugh, “They love me. I love them. I'm their mom away from home.”

“She knows everybody’s name. She lights up your day. Makes you feel welcome. You would never guess she is going through what she is going through,” said Okay Djamouz, a Drake basketball player.

What she is going through might wipe that smile away. But not Jackson.

“I have ovarian cancer, which has not been pleasant at all,” she said.

Jackson has been on and off the job and in the hospital, dealing with scary health issues. That's when Drake basketball player Maggie Bair opened a GoFundMe account for her. It's raised more than $18,000 for medical expenses.

“I feel surrounded with love,” said Jackson.

And that love is mutual.

“To have that level of warmth and comfort and joy come from this one little body is something that I feel everybody looks forward to. I know I look forward to it," said former Drake University staffer Keesha Ward.

Jackson says she is trying to work as much as she can through her diagnosis. She asked us to let her send a message.

“I feel their prayers, and I am truly blessed. Thank you so much. I don't even know how to say thank you. Thank you,” Jackson said with a giggle.

Jackson says the GoFundMe gift will help pay some medical expenses not covered by her insurance.

DES MOINES, Iowa —

An overnight fire quickly engulfed a mobile home in Kings Mobile Home Park in Des Moines, Iowa.

The flames started just before 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.

One mobile home was destroyed, but everyone was able to make it out alive because of a hero.

That hero is 9-year-old Juan Gomez.

"I felt like the house was immediately going to go down," Juan said.

Juan woke up in the middle of the night and noticed an odd smell in the house.

"I just thought it was popcorn, but it was so strong so I checked," Juan said.

As he checked on the odd smell, flames started to burn, so he ran to his mom's room to wake her up.

"I had my door closed. He barged into my room and said mom there's fire," said Ana Dominguez, Juan Gomez's mother.

By the time Juan alerted his mom, the flames were growing.

The family scrambled to get out safely, but flames were already blocking the front door and parts of the ceiling started to fall.

That's when the 9-year-old boy took it on himself to comfort his little sisters.

"She was scared and she started crying. I told Cecilia it will be OK," Juan said.

They were OK. All five of them and their two dogs made it out alive because Juan acted quickly.

"Had I stayed there I think five more seconds, I think we would've, yeah, fried basically," Dominguez said.

It pains Dominguez to think of what could have happened if it wasn't for her brave son, but this proud mom is thankful for her son and what he did.

"I thank God for that kid at that moment. I cannot thank him enough because we were dead asleep," Dominguez said. "He is the reason we're probably alive."

Juan said he realizes his quick actions saved his family and he's thankful they will have more time together.

"I don't know how to say it," Gomez said. "I'm just really happy that I saved them and I can still make memories with my family."

The wind chill was 5 degrees below zero when Linda Houlton fell trying to get her mail, and for the next 19 minutes, she struggled to get back on her feet and out of the cold.Though the home sits along her busy street in Des Moines, Iowa, no one stopped to help until Chris Meyer pulled up in a mail truck. It was not his normal route. "We had a carrier that was gone that day, so I had a part of his route that I don't normally do," Meyer said.It turned out to be a serendipitous assignment. Security video from the home shows he lifted Houlton off the ground, carried her to the house and, on brand, retrieved the mail she had dropped in the fall. "If it was my mother or my grandma, I'd want someone to help her out, and there was no one there to help her," Meyer said. Houlton said she didn't know exactly how long she had been struggling alone until Meyer gave her the time. A timestamp on the security camera confirmed it was 19 minutes. "It got to a point, I couldn't cry," she said. "It was so cold that he stopped and picked me up, even to get me on my feet. And I was still wobbly from being cold."Despite the fall and time spent in the cold, Houlton has no lingering injuries. "I'm not going to go out and check mail in the wintertime anymore," she said with a chuckle. The family turns serious when recognizing Meyer's action. Wen Boatwright, Houlton's son-in-law, found out what happened by watching the security video. "Tears in the eyes. It was relief," he said. "A good Samaritan stopped and helped my mom. Saved her life. We need more people like him out there."The family hopes Meyer will get some kind of national recognition for the rescue. But until such a time, they're letting him know how they feel. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," Houlton said. "You're a very good Samaritan."

DES MOINES, IA — The pandemic is still wreaking havoc in the foodservice and hospitality industry. According to the latest government numbers, a record number of workers quit their jobs in August, nearly 7% compared to 2.9% for the rest of the economy.

At a time when most restaurants were struggling to stay afloat, The Breakfast Club, a brunch spot in Des Moines, opened its doors during the pandemic.

“It's really hard right now,” said Josh Holderness, partner at The Breakfast Club.

A third of restaurant owners in Iowa have lost staff to other industries and don’t expect them to come back.

For Holderness, that means a sick call from an employee can turn things upside down.

“We just don't have the people that you can call on a moment's notice to maybe come in and cover their shifts,” he said.

But as restaurants, bars and other businesses in the hospitality industry struggle to find workers, new research suggests it’s about to get even worse.

According to a JobList survey of nearly 14,000 wage-earners, 58% of restaurant and hotel employees intend to quit their jobs by Jan. 1.

“We're really in a mode where we have to attract back workforce but also attract new workforce into our industry,” said Jessica Dunker, president & CEO of the Iowa Restaurant Association.

She says the restaurant industry is hoping an influx of working moms could help restaurants recover from worker shortages.

“We really have some powerful, unique value proposition to offer potential employees, in particular working moms,” said Dunker.

With women accounting for half the restaurant workforce, flexible schedules could lure some working moms like Nina Punelli to the ranks.

Punelli quit her last job during the pandemic, in part, because juggling a rigid work schedule while raising two remote learners became untenable.

“It was tough. It was hard to manage that. School online, [the] job as well. It was hard,” she said.

With her twin daughters back at school, Punelli returned to the workforce as a server here at The Breakfast Club.

“Flexibility really drove me as a mother to come work here,” said Punelli. “They open early and close at a great time to offer me that opportunity to still have to go, get my kids, pick them up.”

Still, employment overall in the foodservice industry is down nearly a million jobs from pre-pandemic levels, and with Americans quitting in record numbers, there may not be enough women out there to fill the void.

“Not yet,” said Dunker. “We are looking hard, and we know that we have to really market what we can bring to the table as employers to attract those high-quality workers back into our industry.”

The family of an Iowa veteran is encouraging other veterans to pledge to donate their brain to CTE research.

Allen Way graduated from the University of Iowa and was drafted into the Army at 24 years old. He served in Vietnam for 11 months.

"After that, he came home right away like everyone else. He was a narcotics officer in Des Moines, and then was appointed by Gov. [Robert] Ray to be the head of the Iowa crime commission. He was actually the youngest at the time in the nation," said Way's daughter, Meredith Smith.

After years in public safety, Way and his wife settled in Carroll where they ran a business.

"After retirement, we started to see more of his service time coming back to him," said Smith.

Smith says her father started experiencing balance issues, memory loss and hallucinations. He went to the VA hospital for help. Doctors diagnosed him with a traumatic brain injury and PTSD.

"We started to see a quicker decline with cognitive things and memory. We just kind of thought it's early dementia. He's 71 and we just need to be sure his doctors at the VA know," said Smith.

In 2017, Way took his own life at the age of 71.

"The state examiner who performed his autopsy called us and said after having all your dad's medical records and looking through this stuff, and knowing he was a veteran I think we can get his brain accepted at the Boston University Brain study for CTE. We were kind. What is CTE? What is going on? And he explained it and we said of course," said Smith.

Dr. Ann McKee at the CTE Center at Boston University told Way's family his brain had stage 3 CTE. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is the term used to describe brain degeneration likely caused by repeated head traumas. McKee has diagnosed CTE in hundreds of football players. Way is one of the first, and still just a handful of military-only CTE cases.

"It was so hard to believe that my dad had had that, and that who knows how long he had been struggling because he didn't tell us anything," said Smith.

There is an urgent push to get veterans to pledge to donate their brains. This week, Wounded Warrior Project partnered with the Concussion Legacy Foundation to get the word out.

"It's the only way that they are going to be able to diagnose CTE in a living individual is through research. So they need brains," said Smith.

Smith's mission is now speaking to Iowa veterans groups about CTE — and sharing her father's story.

"It's given my family and I an avenue to keep my dad's legacy alive and to honor him, and to honor our veterans," said Smith.

Veterans can pledge to donate their brains at ProjectEnlist.org.

What would you do with an extra $100,000? Des Moines resident Bradly Hanawalt said he asks himself that every day after learning too late that he had a winning Powerball ticket. Hanawalt said his wife purchased the winning lottery ticket Nov. 26, 2019, at a QuikTrip. "My gut dropped," he said. "A chance to have $100,000 was awesome."According to Hanawalt, the lottery ticket expired Nov. 30, 2020. He said he tried to claim the prize on Feb. 8, 2021 after finding the ticket in his wife's car."It doesn't hurt because I didn't have that money, but it hurts because I could have had that money," Hanawalt said. "I have six daughters. It would have helped with bills and everything else."Hanawalt said his wife had COVID-19 in November and that he argued for an extension with the Iowa Lottery. The Iowa Lottery did not grant extensions on claiming prize money because the organization did not close during the pandemic."We feel great empathy for those folks (…) but Iowa law, Powerball law … the administrative rules are very clear," said Mary Neubauer, with Iowa Lottery. "Once a prize is expired it cannot be claimed."Neubauer said Iowa Lottery issued a statewide release about the unclaimed Powerball prize before it expired."We put out a reminder in the final week saying, 'Please, please check. Look at home. Check the sun visor on your car. If you have a pile of tickets, check them,'" she said. Despite checking the winning ticket too late, Hanawalt said he is focused on counting his blessings instead of his lottery losses."It’s money I didn't have, but I have everything I want," he said. "I'm blessed to have six healthy kids. I'm walking again. We're all healthy and happy, and we're loving life."Hanawalt said his wife believes luck will strike again and that she continues to buy lottery tickets each week.Watch the video above to learn more about this story.