United Way Impact 100 partners, including the Kansas City Dream Center, are committed to serving the Latino community with dignity, respect, and culturally relevant resources, and making language accessibility a cornerstone of their work. Founder and Executive Director Brian Hughes shares more about the passion for the Dream Center’s mission to serve this population:
We started the Dream Center here in Kansas City, Kansas just about seven years ago. We’re blessed to help the community with basic needs such as food and clothing. We want to be transformational beyond that and not just put a Band-Aid on problems. We’re addressing some of the true problems of homelessness, hunger and human trafficking.
We’re open every Tuesday and Thursday and serve about 30 to 35 families each time, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but we would run out of food every time if we didn’t require appointments. We don’t ask for identification. We serve anyone and everyone.
It’s so critical that we’re providing this assistance, even if some people look at it as just food or clothing. But we’re providing an opportunity for them to save money, so they can focus on paying other bills like rent or utilities.
We’ve handed out about two million pounds of food or so and helped about 4,000 unique clients over the time we’ve been here. But we can’t do that without volunteers. So every opportunity we get to get our name out there is just great because we need more volunteers. We only have a staff of two, but are blessed with 120 volunteers every month. We really need Spanish-speaking volunteers, so we can better connect with our clients that only speak Spanish. About 85% of those who serve come from Spanish speaking households.
I am blessed with the gift of language. I’m not fluent in Spanish, but I do know enough to connect with our friends in need. I also speak some Arabic and have had the opportunity to make some Arabic speaking clients feel welcome, and that means the world.
It’s important to know who we’re serving. We can’t just come in and start doing something without knowing the needs of our community. So we’ve done that and we always try to have a supply of culturally appropriate foods. We often have a lot of pancakes, rice and beans, peanut butter and jelly, tortillas, and just basic staples that people need, that a lot of us take for granted.
We are here for our entire community. And we’re so thankful to United Way for supporting us in our mission. Being a part of the Impact 100 is such a critical opportunity to amplify our work and connect the broader community to ways they can provide support.
Kansas City Dream Center empiezo en Kansas City, Kansas hace siete anos passado.
Queremos a ayude mucho gente con muchas cosas sobre gente sin lugar, cosas con comida, y ropa tambien. No creemos identifacion para recibir cosas aqui de nosotros.
Queremos a ayude mucho gente. Podemos a ayudar treinta, cuaranta familias cada dia. Estamos abierto cada martes y cada jueves dos a cinco por sita. Y totdo necessitan una cita para recibir en la Dream Center sito de web para KCDreamCenter.org.
Hay mucho gente necessitan ayuda con fracturas y muchos organizaciones que se puedan ayuda y hay organizacione que se hablan Espanol tambien. Y nosotros Podemos a ayuda mucho gente con ropa y comida. Entonces ellos se puedan mantener el dinero para los otros facturas.
Nosotros son graciados. Podemos ayuda mucho con muchos voluntaries cada mes. Tenemos ciento veinte voluntarios y necessitmaos voluntarios que se hablan Espanol para ayuda mucho gente con ropa y comida. Durante muchos anos que serviendo la comunidad, hay mucho gente que necessitamos ayuda con ropa y comida y fracturas tambien. Y muchos organizaciones en la ciudad que puedan ayudar y necessitamos compartir listas de recursos ayudar la gente saber adone enctontrar recursos y que recuros hay. Necesitamos volunatrios quien puede que hablar Espanol, asi nosotros podemos que ayudar la communidad en ingles y communidad.
Hay mucho comida temenos es para la communidad Latino, comidas como panqueques, frijoles, arroz, tortillas, mantequlla de cacahuete y gelatina. Servimos noventa por ciento de la communidad son latinos. Damos la bienvenida a todos aqui.
Hay mucho gente de otros paises y nosotros bienvenidos todo la gente del todo elm undo. Es importante para la communidad con nuestros vecinos que nosotros son aqui.
No necessitamos identificacion cuando gente necesitan que ayuda. Estamos aqui para toda la communidad. Y nosostros son agradecido a United Way para apoyando nosotros en esto trabajo.