“This is Kansas City. Everybody coming together.”

You could measure the breadth of Saturday’s second annual Caring Communities Day in sheer numbers.

And they are large ones:

1,300 hamburgers. 800 hotdogs. 500 popcorn bags, 2,000 game prizes. 1,200 free children’s books. Eighteen community partners providing services like legal assistance, voter registration, job and career opportunities, free gun safety locks, medicaid signups — to a crowd that throughout the day totaled more than two thousand people.

You could measure the day in sensations like the raucous dance, drill team drum lines and fitness shows at the main stage, or the imaginative creations of balloon artists and the wild and beautiful face paintings on children . . .

But Sha’a Earle, with three children at her feet and her 11-month-old youngest in a front-strapped baby carrier, measured it by what she felt inside.

“It’s a good feeling,” she said, “feeling positive and optimistic about the community. It’s inclusive. The prizes look good. It’s fun. I like the outreach and the employment opportunities.”

And that baby hanging below her smile — little Tyson — “had his first taste of ice cream today,” she said.

Oh yes, another number: 1,500 ice cream treats.

And all of it — all of it — for free, in celebration of everything that binds the Caring Communities LINC serves.

After all, we’ve been through plenty of hard times together as well, Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. said on the stage at the start of the day, kicking the event off with a proclamation.

“The resilience, love and joy of Caring Communities in hard times and in good is a cause for celebration,” he said. “Now therefore, I, Frank White Jr., Jackson County Executive, do hereby proclaim June 10, 2023 to be LINC Caring Communities Day in Jackson County.”

Other civic leaders joined the crowd outside the Morning Star Youth and Family Life Center at 27th and Prospect Avenue, including Missouri Rep. Ashley Bland Manlove, Kansas City Council Members Melissa Robinson and Ryana Parks-Shaw, Jackson County Legislator Donna Peyton and Kansas City Police Chief Stacy Graves.

“This is Kansas City . . .,” Graves said, addressing the crowd. “Everybody coming together.”

Sade Owens’ four children were clamoring to go four different directions just as she was trying to put more words to her feeling of how “beautiful” it was out here under a benign gray sky that never did more than drizzle.

They’re “so happy,” she said. “I’m happy . . .” And here her kids were, begging to dive back into the crowd, the games, the prizes —

But the beat rocking the main stage came like a wave across the fair ground.

“I want to dance to this song!” she said.

The broad work of LINC Caring Communities has been anchored at more than 50 schools in partnership with several area school districts, but during the pandemic LINC added another site at Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church’s Youth and Family Life Center.

The location in the heart of Kansas City’s East Side has become a hub for services — as well as an ideal location for the annual Caring Communities Day celebration.

“We are so grateful you all are here today,” Morning Star’s Rev. John Modest Miles said to the crowd. “It means so much that you are here and we are here, together.”

The list of community partners read like a Kansas City service and entertainment guide.

The Kansas City Fire Department. The Kansas City Police Department. University Health. The Community Action Agency. The Full Employment Council . The League of Women Voters. The Kansas City Zoo.

Justice in the Schools. Grandparents for Gun Safety. KC Digital Drive. Alive and Well Communities.

NickiFit. Techni CAL Media. GreedyMan's Signature Juices and Ice Cream Co. Hy-Vee. Fitness 4 Ever. Creative Carnival.

And then there were the LINC-provided raffle prizes, including air fryers, indoor grills, Shark vacuums, stand mixers, dutch ovens and Chiefs tailgating sets.

Karinia Mahan had just arrived, registered, tossed ticket into the raffle drum and gotten into the food line when she heard her number broadcast over the PA system.

“I’d literally just got here,” she said. “They called my number and I had to give my husband my plate.”

She grabbed a double air fryer, getting a fabulous start to what she thought was a great day for everyone.

“It really means a lot,” she said, “that everyone can be out and be safe. Kids are able to have fun and you don’t have to worry about anything.”

In the end, as the grill was packed away and the tents came down, the last families and individuals in happy clusters made their way to their cars or their homes, their receding silhouettes marked by hand-held prize bags and the carnival shapes of twisted balloons.

The beginnings of a great Caring Communities summer.

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer

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