Always Saying Yes in Newton

The Red Barn

Deckerations is the kind of place you know immediately: a big red barn that’s become something of a landmark for Newton shoppers. Becca didn’t set out to open a boutique. She was crafting, doing shows, and her husband asked the obvious question: why not just open a shop in the barn? Five years later, it’s a seasonal destination for women’s clothing, accessories, home decor, and gifts… and a gathering place as much as a store.

“I just wanted to have a place where something was fun and new every time they came,” Becca says. “With the seasons, somewhere they could get together with girlfriends, hang out, and have fun.”

The response, she’ll tell you, still catches her off guard. New faces and returning ones show up every season, and the shop has grown far beyond those early days when the barn held just a fraction of what it does now.

Building Hope, One Hope at a Time

Alongside the boutique, Becca serves as Community Partnership Coordinator for Jasper County Habitat for Humanity, a role that fits her like it was made for her, because in many ways it was. When Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity merged with the Jasper County affiliate, they knew they needed someone local. Someone who knew the community, understood the need, and could build relationships from the ground up. They found Becca.

“I love this role so much because not only is it fulfilling work,” she says, “but I love helping my community and seeing people reach goals and change their lives.”

In her two years in the role, Becca has shepherded the county’s first new Habitat home in many years from concept to closing, working alongside the homeowner on financial readiness, sweat equity hours, volunteer coordination, and every step in between. Danny Akright, Director of Communications for Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity, puts it plainly.

“Becca makes the Newton community better. This home would not exist without her leadership.”

The Decker Challenge

If the boutique and Habitat don’t keep Becca busy enough, there’s also Crisis Canines of the Midlands, a nonprofit that pairs crisis response dogs with first responders in law enforcement, fire, and EMS. Becca and her husband serve as a vetting foster home, exposing dogs to everything from Walmart runs to visits to the sheriff’s office to test their temperament before placement. The dogs in their care have come to be known in the organization by a particular benchmark: if a dog can make it through the Decker household: three busy boys, a revolving door of community commitments, and what Becca cheerfully describes as a chaotic lifestyle… that dog can handle just about anything.

“Giving them away is the hardest thing,” she admits. “But what we keep telling ourselves is, what good is this dog going to do? How many lives are they going to impact?”

Energy That Goes Outward

Ask anyone who knows Becca how she manages it all — the barn, Habitat, the dogs, three boys in three different activities, PTA, and now a seat on the Chamber and Main Street boards — and you’ll get some version of the same answer.

“I don’t know if Becca needs motivation,” Danny says. “She has this energy that just won’t stop. And where a lot of people put that energy into something for themselves, Becca’s energy always goes into something for someone else.”

For Becca, it traces back to her parents, who poured themselves into Newton from the moment they arrived. She watched them work school nights at the restaurant, channeling a percentage of sales back to local teachers. She watched them show up, season after season, for a community that showed up for them. That lesson never left.

“I hope my boys see that giving back to your community is so important,” she says. “If you can’t help make it better for the next generation, what are you doing?”

Her life motto, accordingly, is as straightforward as she is: wake up, and try to make today better than yesterday.

A Home in Newton, Forged in Fire

Newton, Becca will tell you, is a small town that somehow has everything. Close enough to the city, big enough to matter, small enough that people still know your name…and your parents’ names…and maybe your dog, too.

“It’s just such a welcoming town,” she says. “And the red pride is real.”

So is Becca. And so, as a result, is the Newton she’s helping to build: one home, one barn, one foster dog, and one new day at a time.