"Don’t call it a pantry: KCK groups fight hunger with markets, co-op, mobile grocer"

July 30, 2021 — Brittany Patton shops at Cross-Lines Community Market in Kansas City, Kansas. It's her first time visiting the new market. (Chase Castor/The Beacon)

The lack of access to healthy foods is likely impacting communities of color, as census data shows 30% of the population in Kansas City, Kansas, is Hispanic and 23% is Black. Data from Feeding America shows 22,310 Wyandotte County residents were food insecure in 2019 — about 13.5% of the county.

It’s a common problem across Kansas City, Kansas, which is a food desert. It comes with severe health consequences. 

“If you don’t have enough to eat, you can’t function at the capacity that you should be functioning at,” said Kim Weaver, co-founder of the group WyCo Mutual Aid. “If you’re having to make choices between food or medicine, or food and toilet paper, things like that, then you’re not operating to the best of your ability.”

Jones with Cross-Lines said the issue is compounded by limited public transportation. 

“If you’re on public transportation, it takes you over an hour to get there (the supermarket) and an hour to get back,” she said. “It plays a huge issue in the quality of health, quality of life, to not have access to fresh produce, if your only access is to fast food and convenience stores.”

Alyssa Moncure works at Groundwork NRG, an organization serving northeast Kansas City, Kansas. Moncure uses a different term to describe the lack of access to food there: food apartheid. 

“Which is a very intentionally designed system to prevent access to fresh, healthy foods, but also prevents innovation and creation, and self sufficiency,” they said. “This system definitely promotes reliance on extractive businesses.”

For Moncure, food apartheid has roots in historic redlining and disinvestment.