UPDATE: This position has been filled.
KC Healthy Kids is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the health and well-being of children and families through community-driven initiatives and advocacy where they live, learn, work and play. We also support a number of initiatives designed to improve the food and built environments, including the Kansas Food Action Network. Composed of over 30 local food, farm and policy councils, the Kansas Food Action Network is a statewide advocacy network focused on building resilient local and state food systems in Kansas. The Network provides technical assistance, coaching, peer-to-peer learning and network opportunities to support growth and development of food system leadership in Kansas. KC Healthy Kids seeks an enthusiastic and creative Director of Network Engagement to provide programmatic and administrative support for the Kansas Food Action Network. Reporting to the Senior Director of the Kansas Food Action Network, this staff person will provide critical outreach and engagement support to our growing organization. Duties and Responsibilities: Network Engagement
Technical Assistance
External Stakeholder Engagement
Communications
Desired Skills and Qualifications:
Reports to: Senior Director, Kansas Food Action Network Compensation: The salary range for this position is $65,000 - $70,000 based on experience. Benefits include paid time off; mobile phone stipend; health, dental, vision and disability insurance; and a contribution to a retirement plan. KC Healthy Kids staff work a flexible, 32-hour work week. To Apply: Email your resume and answers to the questions listed below to recruitment@kchealthykids.org. Incomplete applications will not be considered. The position will remain open until filled, but applications received before December 8, 2023 will be prioritized. No phone calls please. Inquiries should be sent by email. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted. Applicant Questions: In place of a cover letter, please answer the following questions and submit them with your resume. Please limit your responses to no more than one page per question. 1. Describe your knowledge of and/or experience with:
2. The Kansas Food Action Newtwork operates across a large geographic area, and mostly meets virtually. What strategies would you use to encourage authentic and enthusiastic engagement among members? Photo: Members of Kansas Food Action Network meet with Governor Kelly KC Healthy Kids seeks board members to help us expand our reach and bring about widespread changes that create a culture of health in our region.
We believe every child deserves to grow up in a healthy community with clean parks, safe playgrounds, walkable neighborhoods, bike friendly streets, school and community gardens, farm to school lunches, neighborhood grocery stores, farmers markets, high-quality mental health services, and accessible healthcare. Unfortunately, many of Kansas City’s children do not have access to these features, and the immediate and long-term implication is that this generation of children may be the first that won’t live as long as their parents. To address this, KC Healthy Kids mobilizes community advocates to speak out for healthier neighborhoods and we support their efforts to make their vision a reality. We help leaders in government, schools and communities make the connection between their decisions and the health of children. Do your values align with ours? Put your skills and talents to use as you support the work of KC Healthy Kids, helping raise funds and providing mission-based leadership, strategic governance. As a member of our board, you can grow your professional network as you connect with other members, staff and representatives at our many partnering organizations. We love to see you bring your friends and family along for special events or volunteer opportunities, too! KC Healthy Kids board members serve a three-year term and may be eligible for reappointment for up to two additional terms. Board meetings are held bi-monthly and committee meetings are held during opposite months. Ideal candidates will have the following qualification:
To apply, please contact Markesia Tatum at mtatum@kchealthykids.org for details. Photos: Jenny Pearson and Crystal Hart-Johnson help out at KC Healthy Kids' Kid Zone at the Eat Local and Organic Expo.
The center is one of 12 established across the nation in 2023, with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to support development of a more resilient, diverse, and competitive food system. In addition to 14 key partners, more than a dozen collaborating partners are part of the center’s work to build a more robust and responsive support system for farm and food businesses in local and regional markets. Local Leadership KC Healthy Kids believes that kids and their communities need a strong local food system. With our local food programming we help farmers grow thriving businesses and teach kids and their families the value of growing their own food and purchasing locally grown food. Our planning initiatives bring together partners to work towards a resilient and equitable food system. We engage advocates and decision makers to promote good food policies that put healthy local food within reach and remove barriers so food businesses may thrive. KC Healthy Kids will support the center by identifying existing resources, engaging food policy councils, coordinating community partners, providing technical assistance, promoting local farms and food, and administering Business Builder Subawards across our bi-state region. “As a nonprofit that works in both Kansas and Missouri, KC Healthy Kids appreciates the support of a strong regional partnership. Having organizations from five states working together means we can further invest in our local food system," says Rachael McGinnis Millsap, vice president of programs and policy for KC Healthy Kids. Core Functions The center's purpose is to connect and strengthen small, mid-size, and diverse farm and food businesses, as well as local and regional food sector initiatives. It aims to grow the farm and food enterprises, markets, and community connections needed to make local food an everyday, easy choice. The growing five-state resource network will provide farm and food businesses with:
Local Economy and Food Security
Building local and regional food supply chains is critical for long term growth and the sustainability not only of our region but the country, said Steve Schulz, Associate Professor in the Department of Management at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. His team will support the Heartland Food Business Center’s work to analyze and assist in developing local and regional food supply chain logistics. “We’ve seen how vulnerable our supply chains can be since the pandemic; the school lunch program being shut down, restaurants closing, empty grocery shelves …,” he said. Adding more food and farm businesses and building shorter, local and regional supply chain links will build resilience and strengthen communities, he added. Reliable and ready access to fresh, healthy and affordable food is a major objective of USDA’s $400 million investment in establishing Regional Food Business Centers to serve the entire United States. “USDA recognizes that local and regional food systems are essential to the overall food supply chain, and the new Regional Food Business Centers are the cornerstone of our efforts to support them,” said Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Jenny Lester Moffitt. The five-state center will advance the region’s ability to put local food on more tables and help smaller rural and urban farm and food businesses thrive, said Katie Nixon, Food Systems Director at the rural Missouri community development corporation New Growth. She is co-director of the center with Mary Emery, executive director of Rural Prosperity Nebraska at University of Nebraska Extension, which administers the Center. “Over the last several decades, the power and control of our food system has increasingly gone to large agri-business,” Nixon said. “The small to medium size farms and food entrepreneurs, who often embrace social, environmental and economic sustainability, have been left to fend for themselves in an increasingly challenging system. This center is for these businesses, to help them succeed and provide good food for their communities in a way that helps them sustain their operations.” Regional Resource Network Co-director Mary Emery said a large part of the effort is to support and advance work that is already underway and to connect more entrepreneurs to existing resources. “You have all these different entities working with local foods — producers, grocery stores, local distributors, non-profits, business developers … and these are all puzzle pieces,” she said. “But we’ve never put the pieces together. What we want to do with this project is put the puzzle together and see the picture of how regional food systems work.” The Heartland Food Business Center invites collaboration with other organizations that work with small businesses and in agriculture and community and economic development. Outreach efforts will include learning about other resources and how to support them in working with food and farm businesses. Throughout November, you can support KC Healthy Kids when you shop at The Merc in KCK or Lawrence and tell them to round up!
When shoppers round up to the nearest dollar, donate online, donate their reusable bag refund or drop spare change into the jars at the Lawrence store, the Merc will give 100% of those donations to KC Healthy Kids. The Merc Co+op in KCK has been a great partner to KC Healthy Kids since the KCK store opened in 2020. Here are some examples:
How You Can Help The more people who shop and round up during November, the more The Merc will be able to donate. We'd be so grateful for any help you can give!
Locations Downtown KCK 501 Minnesota Kansas City, KS 66101 Open daily 8 a.m.–9 p.m. Lawrence 901 Iowa St Lawrence, KS 66044 Open daily 7 a.m. - 10 p.m. Looking for a great way to give your staff a break from the office, while also giving back to the community? Follow in MMGY’s footsteps and join us at Splitlog Farm for a day of volunteering!
This past June, 40 volunteers from MMGY, a marketing agency specializing in travel, tourism and hospitality, spent two days helping our local food team at Splitlog Farm. They took time away from the office to plant, harvest and serve their community, all while enjoying the nice sunshine. Each day, about 20 volunteers came to pull weeds from the sweet potato patch, clean out pollinator beds and plant seedlings. The potatoes they harvested were part of KC Healthy Kids’ free farm box distribution that goes to kids and families at our partnering early care and education centers. The MMGY staff enjoyed being able to give back to the Kansas City community and loved exploring Splitlog Farm. Most did not know the farm existed until they volunteered! “It is always an honor to be able to give back to the KC community and do our part to help make the world a better place. We are blessed to be in such a wonderful location and love that we were able to volunteer and help out where we could! Being able to take a day to volunteer is beyond rewarding in more ways than can be counted,” said one volunteer, Brendan Many of the MMGY staff became attached to the 6 kittens born on the farm earlier this year. One woman made it her mission to help the kittens be adopted, as well as the mama cat. By the time the kittens were old enough to be separated from mom, all were adopted quickly! The volunteer even took the mama home and named her Sofie. Sofie went from extremely skinny, to living the good life with her new family. KC Healthy Kids is grateful to MMGY for helping get Splitlog Farm ready for the fall season. If your family, community group or staff would like to volunteer at Splitlog, please contact Gina Piccinini. By Shelby Mocherman, LMSW, KC Healthy Kids Mindful eating is a habit that can help kids and adults slow down and listen to their bodies. Listening to our bodies helps us know when our bellies feel full or if they are "out of fuel." It also helps us better understand what types of foods our bodies like and need. Mindful eating can encourage kids to develop lifelong healthy eating habits, focus , and emotional regulation when practiced regularly. In his 2017 article, Mindful Eating: The Art of Presence While You Eat, Joseph B. Nelson says mindful eating means using all of our five senses and paying attention to our food on purpose, moment by moment, and without judgment. How Do We Practice Mindful Eating? To practice mindful eating, we can think about where our food comes from (source) and explore each of our senses (sound, sights, touch, smell, taste), while eating purposefully. Try asking these questions at snack or meal times. Source: Encourage kids to think about where their food comes from. (Think about how the food got from the farm to our plate. Imagine who put the seed in the ground and made sure it got the water and sun it needed.) Sound: What does it sound like when we are preparing this food? Is our food making any sounds before we get ready to eat? (Think "sizzles in the pan.") Sight: What does the food look like? What colors and shapes do we see? (Maybe a purple eggplant with flecks of white.) Touch: How does this food feel in our hands? What is the texture of this food? Before chewing, how does this food feel on our tongue? (Such as a piece of lettuce that feels cold and crunchy.) Smell: What does our food smell like? Is it a familiar smell, or a new smell? (Something smells sweet, like warm spices!) Taste: How does this food taste? Does the taste change as you chew it? What happens in your body as you eat the food? (At first it tastes salty, but perhaps there is a bitter after taste.) These kinds of serve-and-return interactions have a positive impact that can last a lifetime. Photos: Kids tried sweet pea shoots and rustic bread during a mindful eating activity at the Eat Local & Organic Expo in April. Alissa Kooyenga, program assistant for trauma informed care, shares how a longtime friend eased her mind when it came time to protect her infant with vaccinations. Parenting can sometimes feel like putting together furniture—except all the directions are in a foreign language, a fire alarm is screeching in the background, and every single piece is the wrong size and shape. My firstborn just turned one, and I can confidently say that I have never experienced anything as stretching as motherhood. The constant fear of not doing the “right” thing, of somehow irreparably messing up my child, stares me in the face every morning. How will I know the right thing to do? With all this concern, it came as no surprise that I felt terrified to make the decision to vaccinate my daughter. I had been vaccinated myself, both with the COVID vaccine and other lifespan vaccinations, so I believe the practice is important and helpful. But still I worried. How would my daughter react? Would she handle the vaccination okay? These thoughts raced through my head as I considered her wellbeing and future. Luckily, one of my best friends is a healthcare professional. Keri has two boys, ages two and four, and is a Clinical Research Coordinator with KU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. When the question of my daughter’s vaccinations came up, I immediately reached out to Keri to ask what she did with her boys. With a bachelor’s of science in life/health sciences and five years’ experience in the medical field, I trusted Keri to give me the best advice on what I should do. Keri assured me that she had her own children vaccinated, and they experienced no side effects from vaccines. She explained that my fears were normal, and every parent struggles with what to do about their children’s health decisions. She recommended I look at websites such as PUBMed and the Cochrane Library to learn more about the many different studies on vaccinations in children, which helped me better understand the COVID vaccine specifically and its possible side effects within the adolescent population. She even expressed her own peace she felt since vaccinating her children, having given them an added layer of protection against debilitating or even fatal diseases. I felt heard by my friend, and now felt assured that this decision was not one I wrestled with alone. I also choose to discuss it with my daughter's pediatrician, expressing my worries and hesitation. She encouraged me to vaccinate my daughter based on the medical studies' research that has come out, but ultimately told me it was my decision. Talking to another health care professional, especially one who knows my daughter's health well, eased many of my hesitations. After talking to Keri, undertaking some research myself, and talking to my daughter's pediatrician, I truly believed that vaccinating my daughter with both COVID and lifespan vaccinations was the best choice I could make for her. Knowing other mothers are wrestling with the same decisions for their children lent me encouragement to research and decide for myself what was the best decision for my family. I firmly believe every parent should have the right to wrestle through their medical (and other parenting) decisions within their community. Parenting is hard, but just like putting together furniture, it’s one thousand times easier with the help of others. If you would like to learn more about how to sign up your child for vaccinations or just have questions about your family’s medical decisions, visit these websites:
KC Healthy Kids will partner with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on a $25 million cooperative agreement award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the creation of the Heartland Regional Food Business Center.
The Heartland Regional Food Business Center is among 12 such national centers the USDA will establish to serve all areas of the country. The centers will target their work to historically underinvested communities in their regions. The Heartland center will serve the states of Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa. Rural Prosperity Nebraska, a UNL hub that helps connect Nebraska communities with university faculty, students and other resources, is leading the project in cooperation with KC Healthy Kids and 32 additional partners. Those partners include the Heartland Center in Lincoln and Extension offices in participating states, as well as non-profit organizations, and tribal and indigenous groups, among others. “As a nonprofit that works in both Kansas and Missouri, KC Healthy Kids appreciates the support of a strong regional partnership. Having organizations from five states working together means we can continue to connect communities to close health gaps and further invest in community driven initiatives," says Rachael McGinnis Millsap, vice president of programs and policy for KC Healthy Kids. “Kids and their communities need convenient access to healthy food through a strong local food system, says Millsap. "This partnership will have a huge impact on our ability to engage advocates and decision makers to promote policies that put healthy food within reach." “USDA is excited to be partnering with Rural Prosperity Nebraska on this innovative and unprecedented initiative,” said Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Jenny Lester Moffitt. “By leveraging the expertise now available through these Regional Food Business Centers, USDA can offer unique support for local food systems development across the country.” Mary Emery, executive director of Rural Prosperity Nebraska, said the award would help paint a clear picture of the farmers, distributors and other major players in the region’s local food system. “You have all these different entities working with local foods—producers, grocery stores, local distributors, non-profits, business developers, the Center for Rural Affairs, meat processing plants, Extension offices, the Nebraska Regional Food Systems Initiative—and these are all puzzle pieces,” she said. “But we’ve never put the pieces together. What we want to do with this project is put the puzzle together and see the picture of how regional food systems work.” As the regional food system comes into focus, Emery and other leaders can work to do a better job of connecting people to fresh, locally produced foods. "The inspiration for the proposal came from recognizing how underserved populations in rural communities often struggle to easily access local and healthy foods. This issue was exacerbated during the COVID pandemic, when long supply-chain lines became disrupted, leaving many communities without fresh foods. This project emphasizes the necessity to rethink local and regional food supply chains, and how to strengthen them," Emery said. The center will do just that, providing an online interactive platform where buyers, sellers, producers, processors and market managers can communicate and collaborate at the local level. Position Description
Farmer- Splitlog Farm and Blvd Loft Project 10 hrs per week April 1 - October 31 (there is flexibility on these dates) $22 per hour Contract Farmer Position The position will assist the Local Food Program Manager/Farm Manager with all aspects of organic urban farming to help the community increase local food education and access. The position requires some food production experience, organizational skills, the ability to think strategically, and to establish and maintain effective working relationships with volunteers, interns, community partners and other KC Healthy Kids staff. Duties and Responsibilities:
Job Relationships: The Contract Farmer will interact with farm share members, volunteers, interns, partners and KC Healthy Kids staff. Contact: tflowers@kchealthykids.org Eat Local & Organic Expo Johnson County Community College Saturday April 1 , 2023, 8 a.m - 2 p.m. Free Admission, Free Parking Hosted by KC Healthy Kids Access the gymnasium from North Campus Drive off of College Boulevard. The Eat Local & Organic Expo brings together area farmers and midwest eaters KC Food Circle™ kicks off farmers market season with the return of the Eat Local & Organic Expo Saturday, April 1 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Johnson County Community College. This family-friendly event is free and open to the public. The Expo is a great place to get to know farmers and find out how you can be more connected to your food and the people who grow it. At the Expo, shoppers can buy from some of the best local, organic, free-range farmers, ranchers, and small-batch artisans in the area. On Saturday, April 1 at Johnson County Community College, shoppers can…
The Eat Local & Organic Expo began in 1999 as part of a food system conference sponsored by KC Food Circle and Sierra Club. KC Food Circle is a program of KC Healthy Kids that connects local farmers with wholesale buyers, chefs and artisans who are vital to our region’s local food system. The Expo is sponsored by J.R. Albert Foundation, Inc., Alphagraphics, Children’s Mercy, Michele and Jim Stowers, AF Group, Central Bank of Kansas City anbd Lamar Advertising Company. About KC Food Circle Since 1988, KC Food Circle™ has connected our region’s eaters and farmers to grow a thriving local food community. In 2019, KC Healthy Kids adopted the volunteer-led effort and continues to maintain the farmer directory, to uphold the integrity of KC Food Circle™ pledges, and to help farmers increase sales by leveraging our partnerships with area restaurants, schools and other institutions. About KC Healthy Kids KC Healthy Kids connects communities to close health gaps. The nonprofit invests in community education, local and regional advocacy and direct support. Their work addresses systemic obstacles through solutions-based focus areas of youth advocacy, food policy, mental health, local food and active communities for kids and their families. Kids and their communities need a strong local food system. That’s why KC Healthy Kids helps farmers grow thriving businesses and teaches kids & families the value of growing their own food and purchasing locally-grown food. |