Chiefs, NFL celebrate BoysGrow's work for youth and good health
John Gordon Jr., executive director of BoysGrow in south Kansas City, addresses the guests from the Chiefs and the NFL with many of the boys in the program in a special recognition celebration Sept. 3.
Just a little more than a day before the Chiefs were to kick off the new football season, the NFL came to town to celebrate — and surprise — one of LINC’s partners in the work of spreading healthy, locally grown food.
BoysGrow for 14 years has been providing area youth the coming-of-age experience of a working farm. And their outreach is growing and getting more attention.
One of the world’s biggest brands — the National Football League — and the Kansas City Chiefs brought Chiefs Ambassadors, volunteers, some cheerleaders and KC Wolf to the south Kansas City farm to highlight BoysGrow’s work as part of the NFL’s “Green” program support for the environment.
BoysGrow staff and volunteers help bag fresh produce from the farm that will be distributed to local families through LINC's Caring Communities sites
And, surprise, the NFL also gifted BoysGrow Founder and Executive Director John Gordon Jr. with a pair of tickets to Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans in February.
BoysGrow and its team of teenagers, some alums and volunteers displayed some of the operations, including garden bed construction, fruit tree planting and packaging their produce and local food for distribution.
On this special day, BoysGrow was packaging the bags of food they distribute to local families through LINC and the federal Local Food Purchase Assistance program.
LINC is the local community partnership that the Missouri Department of Social Services chose to coordinate the program that has recruited more than 60 local producers to provide food that LINC distributes to communities of need across an 11-county area of northwestern Missouri.
BoysGrow is providing food that LINC distributes through its Caring Communities programming in the Grandview School District to area families.
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