Overall poverty rates in the US have decreased to 12.7%.
BUT, poverty rates in KCK have climbed to 24.9% and in KCMO to 19%.
Today, many hardworking families are stuck in the cycle of poverty.
The poverty rate is nearly 20% among children under 18…
that’s 1 in 5 children in our community!
Hands to Hearts KC began in the Spring of 2009 with the simple goal helping children in need. What began with a handful of volunteers packing backpacks of nutritious food for 150 inner-city children to take home from school on Fridays quickly grew. We now proudly serve as Harvesters largest community partner in the BackSnack Program. The Bookmobile visits local schools and community groups, handing out FREE books to children. And our clothing closet distributes HUNDREDS of articles of clothing each year.
BACKSNACKS
We are currently serving 1300 students weekly in 19 schools in Kansas City, KS school district. We typically pack on Thursday nights and deliver Friday mornings. Backsnacks is a great family activity! Sign-up can be found under the volunteer tab.
KIDS CLOTHING CLOSET
We operate an ongoing clothing drive and maintain in-school clothing closets in area elementary schools, handing out hundreds of articles of kids clothing a month to those in need.
BOOKMOBILE & BOOK DRIVE
Have new or gently used books in need of a new home? We collect board books through 8th grade reading books year round. Books are given to children for free. Our Bookmobile distributes more than 50,000 FREE books to children across the Kansas City metro each year.
SPECIAL REQUESTS
Hands to Hearts works with the Kansas City, KS Homeless Liasion’s office on special projects. For example, in 2016 we adopted out 49 Homeless Christmas Families in under 16 hours. We collect full and travel size Hygiene Products: soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothbrushes and toothpaste. These items cannot be bought with food stamps. In 2017, we began collecting Food Items to be distributed to Homeless Families: granola bars, individual packs of peanut butter and crackers, goldfish/crackers, fruit snacks/strips.
