Each year I am amazed at what our staff, generous donors and dedicated volunteers accomplish in partnership with our clients and neighbors on Troost. It is no small thing day in and day out to walk alongside our most vulnerable community members to reveal their strengths. And yet, each morning our doors open and people come in for help, for warmth, and for hope.

You have made a difference in the lives of so many by enabling RS to care for over 5,150 unduplicated individuals this year!

This year also brought new staff, a newly remodeled RS Cafe and commercial kitchen, an improved Troost Jazz and Soul Experience fundraiser, and renewed vision for our work.

Hospitality Services
The RS Cafe is where neighbors first receive hospitality like hot, nutritious food at our Friday Night Meal, and enjoy coffee in our Internet Cafe. Now, with our remodeled RS Cafe space, we have a more uplifting and safe environment to complement our work. Upgrading our kitchen and pantry to meet commercial standards further supports our efforts to grow the RS Internet Café into a “Pay What You Can” RS Cafe at 31st and Troost, opening in 2017.

Your gifts to RS in support of our Hospitality Services

helped feed over 3,000 individuals and 1,700 households through our pantry, including 600 children
served over 12,500 meals through Friday night meal program
provided free gigabit speed internet and the only public computers on Troost

Emergency Social Services
Our work to reveal the strengths of those we serve often begins with some form of emergency social services, whether people are in need of an ID and birth certificate, rent and utilities assistance, medicine or medical supplies, urgent dental or vision care, or in-depth case management. Triaging immediate needs helps lower barriers to self-sufficiency and connects clients with trained caseworkers.

Your gifts to RS in support of our Emergency Social Services

provided medical assistance to over 1,000 totalling over $200,000 in care
helped launch our I’D BE Campaign to raise awareness about the many reasons people need an ID
helped us secure over 1,200 IDs, birth certificates and work permits to help people get jobs, housing, education and other public services.

Therapeutic Services
Beyond working to address immediate challenges our neighbors face every day, is the ongoing, deep healing from trauma that must happen. Through our Therapeutic Services, we have adopted what we call our “stealth mental health” program that uses group and individual therapy as well as intensive case management to create a supportive and encouraging network of people to promote healing and reconciliation for themselves.

Your gifts to RS in support of our Therapeutic Services

gave 75 men and women suffering from trauma access to our caring therapists and case managers
provided 800 hours of group therapy and 500 hours of individual therapy to those who would have gone untreated otherwise
helped bring these neighbors together to support each other in creating an ecosystem of healing in Kansas City’s most challenging neighborhoods.

Economic Community Building Services
Finding sustainable income and meaningful work is critical for revealing the community’s strength and stopping the cycle of poverty. Our Economic Community Building Services are aimed at creating opportunities for growth and stability by offering digital survival classes, self-sufficiency workshops, deepening community involvement for our seniors, and creating jobs.

Your gifts in support of the RS Economic Community Building Services

helped 106 low-income senior citizens share their hearts and wisdom with over 350 children in 31 schools, hospitals and civic agencies across Jackson, Clay and Platte Counties
provided jobs for over 285 people through Resolve Staffing, an RS Social Ventures company
created 31,000+ billable hours, paying $9-$12.50/hr to neighbors (mostly east of Troost) in various food service, hospitality, packaging and maintenance jobs in KC

With your very generous support in 2016 RS walked alongside our most vulnerable neighbors and provided social, therapeutic and economic community building services to more people than ever before. We are deepening our collaboration with the 12+ neighborhoods east of Troost and their resident leaders. We are even reaching further east and south in KCMO to places where help is harder to find. Thank you!

You helped us take the next steps in our vision of transforming Troost from a dividing line to a gathering place of hope and reconciliation. Please join with us in making 2017 a year of reconciliation and hope again by continuing to support RS generously at year-end.

DONATE YOUR END OF YEAR GIFT NOW

For those we serve
Fr. Justin Mathews, Executive Director of Reconciliation Services

Potential. Possibility. Progress. These are three words that can describe the modern world we live in. The advent of faster, stronger technology has touched every facet of our American lives. We have the ability to travel thousands of miles in a matter of hours. We can heal illnesses that in the past would have wiped out whole populations and we can access information at a speed faster than we can process it. Just a few generations ago, these things would have been considered nothing short of magic.

Our Digital Survival class might be described as ‘nothing short of magic’ by many we serve in our RS community. It is a class that teaches digital literacy to a community that is impacted profoundly by the digital divide. A recent survey done by Google Fiber found that 17 percent of Kansas City (roughly 80,000) do not have access to the Internet. Of that number, 41 think the Internet is irrelevant and 28 percent lack access. Demographically, 44 percent are seniors, 46 percent are African-American, 42 percent make less than $25,000 a year and 64 percent have a high school education or less. These numbers are directly representative of the community that RS serves.

Many of our neighbors live in a world where they see great opportunity in the form of tools for technology and information, yet they can't move forward. Many experience feelings of frustration and confusion, but they are often too intimidated or embarrassed to ask why this is the case. More importantly, the majority of our neighbors don’t know how to change their situation. They can see the potential, possibility and progress all around them, but they are painfully aware of their inability to access it. This inability has several root causes: for some it's the lack of education, for some it's an ignorance of computer technology that borders on superstition, but for the majority it is a simple lack of access to the technology itself.

At RS cafe, we offer free Wi-Fi to the neighborhood. This allows those who have the technology such as a smartphone to get online. Once there, they may look for housing, find a loved one, or as you may have read in our Venerate article about Fr. Chris they can find employment through Resolve Staffing. Many however, have the technology, such as a low-grade smart phone, but they don’t know how to use it. That’s where our Digital Survival Class comes in. We help them discover the tools that are already at their fingertips. At RS addressing the digital divide is an important aspect of advocacy because it represents a means by which the community we serve can find dignity and solutions to become community sufficient.

Poverty isn't something that is easily solved and digital literacy is only one piece of the puzzle, but in this modern world it is an important piece. For that young woman who desperately needs a job, getting an email set up and having a computer to help sign up for daycare is the very thing that can make or break her life situation.

Article by Fr. Deacon Turbo Qualls, RS