At the soup kitchen this man runs, guests are served restaurant-style
Beau Heyen has brought a fresh outlook on addressing hunger to the Kansas City Community Kitchen and the broader metropolitan area.
Beau Heyen and his team have brought restaurant-style service to the Kansas City Community Kitchen.
DAVID CONRADS
Kansas City, Mo.
Does this sound like a soup kitchen?
At the entrance, Maggie Mae Brown is greeted by a host. Once she鈥檚 seated, a waiter takes her order 鈥� oven-baked chicken with steamed potatoes and iced tea. Her meal is brought to her table, and once she鈥檚 finished, the waiter clears her dishes.
Yes, this is the Kansas City Community Kitchen, just east of downtown Kansas City, Mo., where anybody can go for a free midday meal Monday through Friday. Ms. Brown lives in a transitional housing facility as she tries to move from homelessness to economic independence, and eating several times a week at the KCCK is key to helping her stretch her paycheck and achieve her goal of having her own place to live.
鈥淚 love it,鈥� Brown says. 鈥淭he food is healthy. The people really care. You don鈥檛 feel homeless here. They don鈥檛 stigmatize you.鈥�
The KCCK was established in the 1980s by Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral and has been under the auspices of Episcopal Community Services since 2005. But it wasn鈥檛 until Beau Heyen became ECS鈥檚 president and chief executive officer in August 2015 that a transformation began. Mr. Heyen arrived in the city with a fresh outlook on addressing hunger and related issues, and he and his staff have promoted the idea of 鈥渄ining with dignity.鈥� The KCCK switched to the restaurant-style approach early this year.
鈥淭he Kansas City Community Kitchen has been serving emergency food for more than 30 years, but this new style of service really represents what we are about now,鈥� Heyen says. 鈥淲e鈥檝e gotten rid of the long lines and the cafeteria trays.鈥�
The KCCK makes 350 to 375 meals per day, including about 75 meals that aren鈥檛 served on the main premises. At the central location, guests can choose from two or three entrees. Heyen plans to have a set seasonal menu with as many as 10 choices by next summer. In addition, the KCCK is emphasizing healthy food, including fresh produce 鈥� salad and fruit are usually available 鈥� and shelf-stable products that aren鈥檛 high in sodium.
The KCCK is partially staffed by students in ECS鈥檚 culinary program, a 30-week immersive program for adults trying to turn their lives around.
鈥淣ow our guests not only get delicious and healthy meals cooked by our culinary team, but they get some choice in what they eat that day,鈥� Heyen notes.
More meals, less crime
By every measure, the new restaurant-style model has been a success. Since it was rolled out in February, the number of meals served has increased 8 percent each month. With a host and waiters circulating in the dining room, the criminal activity that plagues many soup kitchens has all but disappeared. Whereas food pantries tend to be patronized mainly by women and soup kitchens mainly by men, the KCCK has a nice mix of both.
鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing that people feel safe here,鈥� Heyen says. 鈥淲e work really hard to create that environment.鈥�
The change in format and the focus on healthy and appealing food have been so popular that the regulars have dubbed the place 鈥淐lub 750,鈥� after the KCCK鈥檚 street address of 750 Paseo Boulevard. 聽
鈥淲hen it comes to the work of the KCCK, its success is not necessarily measured by the quantity of food we serve or the number of people we serve,鈥� says the Rev. R. Stan Runnels, rector of St. Paul鈥檚 Episcopal Church and Day School in Kansas City and a member of the ECS board of directors. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really measured by this new understanding of how we serve those in need and how we are in relation to the people we serve. By that measure, Beau has changed the ... conversation for all of our ministries in food. In my opinion, he鈥檚 bringing that change to bear on the whole of Kansas City.鈥�
A graduate of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Heyen also has degrees in psychology and educational guidance and counseling. He worked extensively in anti-poverty services and hunger relief in Houston and also did a stint as chief operating officer and chief development officer for Masbia, a network of kosher soup kitchens and food pantries in New York City.
He traces his passion for food and community to growing up in Seward, a small town in Nebraska, and working in his grandmother鈥檚 restaurant. She was Mennonite, although Heyen was raised Methodist.
鈥淚 joke that the best way to learn something is to learn it under your Mennonite grandmother,鈥� he says. 鈥淪he really taught me a lot about food and family, and the community that is built over food.鈥�
Hunger summits
Heyen is committed to tackling the interconnected problems of hunger, homelessness, and poverty. Under his leadership, ECS has conducted three 鈥渉unger summits鈥� in different parts of the Kansas City metropolitan area, and four more are planned to take place within a year. He is also a leading advocate in addressing the issues of workforce development and community-building.
鈥淭here aren鈥檛 enough superlatives to describe the energy that Beau has brought to the community, and the way that he鈥檚 integrated hunger issues and food issues into the overall issue of ending systemic poverty,鈥� says Vickie Riddle, executive director of the Greater Kansas City Coalition to End Homelessness. 鈥淏eau isn鈥檛 just trying to feed people a meal. He鈥檚 working with the community organizations and agencies that are dealing with the systemic issues of homelessness. He has initiated connections and program changes that are going to be very effective in helping people break the cycle of poverty.鈥�
The KCCK has a $3.2 million annual budget, which includes in-kind donations, and Heyen is responsible for raising about $1 million a year. The funds come from a variety of sources such as local foundations, church partners, and individual contributors. The federal government supplies $5,000.
Heyen hopes to be serving breakfast by the end of this year and is looking into starting a weekend program. He is also exploring the possibility of opening similar 鈥渄ining with dignity鈥� emergency-food restaurants in five other locations across the metropolitan area in the next few years.
鈥淲e鈥檙e going to be leading a movement here that says that food is the most basic human right,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very common for people to give up food first when they are faced with other trauma in their lives. If we don鈥檛 eat, we can鈥檛 function and we can鈥檛 be a part of society. Food is the most important thing we can give someone if we want them to move forward in life.鈥�
The role of volunteers
While the restaurant model does not significantly increase the cost per meal, it greatly increases the need for volunteers to cook and serve. That means between 20 and 25 volunteers per day. For Heyen, the many volunteers contribute to the community-building effort, in which people from various walks of life come together for a common purpose.
About half the volunteers each day are students from schools in the region. For educators like Mr. Runnels, the restaurant model creates an attractive place to send young people to fulfill service requirements 鈥� a place where volunteers are not just dishing out food from behind a counter, but are interacting with those they are serving. Every Friday, a group of sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders from St. Paul鈥檚 serves at the KCCK.
鈥淥ur students are learning the dignity of all human beings,鈥� Runnels says. 鈥淭hey are getting to have human-to-human interaction, and that鈥檚 going to have a consequence in their own moral formation. Beau has given us one more tool to help us with that.鈥�
鈥淭his isn鈥檛 just a kitchen,鈥� Heyen says, summing up the KCCK and his own approach to food advocacy. 鈥淭his is a transformative space where we鈥檙e trying to teach something to everyone who walks in here.鈥�
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