The overnight news footage, just days after Christmas, swept like the fire itself through LINC’s communities.

A devastating fire had fully engulfed one of the large residences at the Waldo Heights Apartments at 80th Street and Troost Avenue in south Kansas City.

As the morning after dawned with a chilling snow over the charred ruins, LINC Site Coordinator Calvin Wainright at Melcher Elementary Schools and his wife, the Rev. Cassandra Wainright, took in the news.

So did Danisha Clarkson, LINC’s site coordinator at Banneker Elementary School.

At least 30 families, in the care of the Red Cross, had lost their home and everything in it.

The families were nameless in those first reports, but the LINC coordinators saw remembered faces — families like the ones Clarkson had just visited there in the weeks just before Christmas to check on their welfare for the Kansas City Public Schools, and to hand out grocery gift cards from LINC.

Urgency overwhelmed her as she saw the images of the terrible flames.

“Wow,” she exclaimed to herself. “What can I do?”

The Wainrights immediately were mobilizing action. Cassandra, program director of the Calvary Community Outreach Network and the president of the Concerned Clergy Coalition, was on the phone with other Kansas City pastors, coordinating multiple churches’ aid.

And Calvin thought of something LINC had in store. He’d helped Clarkson earlier in the fall when LINC’s site at Banneker Elementary School took on the trove of clothing items and goods when a neighborhood church had to close its charity closet.

Clarkson and her staff member, Sheronda Luckado, had sorted the motley collection, and laundered it at the school.

Wainright texted Clarkson that morning: What about those clothes?

Clarkson texted back: I’m already on it.

Kansas City’s schools were closed for the holiday break, but Clarkson had called Banneker’s principal, Harrison Neal. And he quickly met LINC’s team at the school to open the building so they could get to the clothes closet.

At least three site coordinators plus lead LINC staffers would join in the relief effort.

Neal knew what Clarkson knew, Clarkson said, that there were school families suddenly homeless.

Clarkson previously had been out into the community to check on families that the school was having trouble reaching. LINC site coordinators at schools across Kansas City were taking on this role as the pandemic and remote learning left so many families feeling isolated.

LINC was also distributing grocery store gift cards to help families through the winter, especially during the holiday weeks when the schools’ breakfast and lunch delivery programs were closed.

Some of Clarkson’s visits had been to the Waldo Heights Apartments, including the building that burned. That’s who she saw in her mind as she rallied others to help after the fire.

She saw the mother who stepped out to meet her days before Christmas after Clarkson reached her on the phone and told her she was coming by with another LINC site coordinator, Jason Ervin.

Clarkson had a gift card for her. Clarkson asked her how her family was doing, gave her the card and wished her a happy holiday.

“She thanked us,” Clarkson said. “And she said, ‘You all just don’t know . . . I appreciate this.’”

The day after the fire, LINC’s team gathered clothing items, plus collections of toys from the Marines Toys for Tots program that were left over from Christmas and packed up 15 boxes that they loaded into three vehicles.

St. Elizabeth School, a little more than a mile northwest of the Waldo Heights Apartments, had stepped up as the hub for organizations bringing aid for the displaced families. The community response seen inside St. Elizabeth’s, including the churches Cassandra Wainright and helped rally, plus so many others who came, was mighty, Calvin Wainright said.

He was not surprised.

“A lot is going on in the city a lot of people don’t know about,” he said. “When you see the partnerships, you don’t talk race, you don’t talk politics, you just do the work of God and keep moving.”

Many organizations came forward quickly to help the families, said Angie Springs, spokesperson for the American Red Cross, the non-profit disaster relief agency. The Red Cross made sure families had a place to stay, helping them with emergency housing plans, including providing hotel rooms for those that had no place to shelter. The Red Cross also provided purchase cards to help families with essential needs.

The Westport Salvation Army, Avenue of Life, the Concerned Clergy Coalition and St. Elizabeth School were major partners among many that joined to help the Red Cross with aid, Springs said.

“No one can do it alone,” Springs said. “It takes all of us doing our part.”

The work goes on, Clarkson and Wainright said. LINC will continue working with its school partners, following up with families, helping each other.

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer