Responding to Community Needs Caused by COVID-19

Dear NCF Heartland Family,

It is an extraordinary time as our world faces unparalleled challenges in the face of COVID-19. We are living with enormous uncertainty and stress. What a great opportunity to reflect the love of our Savior and the confidence we have in Him! We know many of you have already turned your hearts to those in need asking, “how can we, the Body of Christ, help those with the greatest needs right now?”

This web page will serve as a place to share local needs and stories specific to the current crisis. NCF has the unique privilege of seeing what God’s people can do when things get tough. We look forward to sharing various ways in which we can knit together the community through Christ’s love.

Prayer Ministry

We cherish your prayer requests; please email us to submit your requests. We are praying for you! We will also share stories how God is working. Each week, you can hear stories of hope and generosity from those who are responding to the COVID-19 crisis with faith instead of fear through the HopeCast podcast.

Supporting Programs that Address Emergency Needs Caused by COVID-19

We are identifying programs, nonprofits and resources that are serving the community in direct response to COVID-19. In addition to the new needs caused by COVID-19, these organizations are non-profits and also have financial needs; consider supporting them as you feel led. Please email us about those who are addressing emergency needs.

Healthcare

• Community Blood Centers to meet current and future anticipated need for blood and blood components, the Community Blood Center requires approximately 500 donors every weekday. Please consider donating if you are able.
• Heart to Heart International strengthens communities through improving health access, providing humanitarian development and administering crisis relief worldwide.
• Hope Family Care Center is a faith-based family medical practice providing quality primary healthcare in Kansas City, Missouri’s east side. All patients are welcome including the uninsured, those with insurance, Medicaid, or Medicare.
• Mercy and Truth Ministries works to provide healthcare to the underserved and uninsured of our community and the world.
• Reconciliation Services mission is to cultivate a community seeking reconciliation to transform Troost from a dividing line into a gathering place, revealing the strength of all. RS has innovated an intentional continuum of care to reveal the strength of all. We work together to seek reconciliation, one heart at a time, through strengths-based Healthy Community Initiatives, Social Services, Mental Health Services, and the creation of Economic Community Building.

Supporting Ministries that Serve Vulnerable Populations

Ministries’ already thin resources may be stretched beyond capacity during this time. The ability for the local church and ministries to support the community is more important than ever. The organizations listed below have increased financial needs due to COVID-19. Consider supporting these ministries and their vulnerable populations as you feel led:

Housing

• City Union Mission is an evangelical Christian ministry committed to sharing the gospel and meeting the spiritual, physical, and emotional needs of men, women, and children who are poor or homeless.
• Healing House is a non-profit, faith-based substance abuse recovery organization working in the Kansas City metropolitan area to provide safe and stable homes with opportunities for spiritual and personal growth along with purposeful guidance and support for men and women who are committed to overcoming their addiction and becoming responsible, productive, drug and alcohol free members of our community.
• Hillcrest Ministries of MidAmerica has been helping the homeless to become self-reliant, independent contributors of society for over 40 years in the Greater KC area. Your gift will help ensure that Hillcrest can continue to offer homeless families by offering transitional housing and opportunities to change their lives for the better.
• Hope Faith Ministries is the only collaborative daytime facility in Kansas City, Missouri, providing direct services to people experiencing homelessness throughout Kansas City. Hope Faith provides for immediate needs such as food, showers, clothing, laundry service, case management, and other essential services.
• Kansas City Rescue Mission is helping Kansas City’s homeless men and women experience freedom from the past and hope for the future through the belief that the love of Jesus Christ changes lives. 
• Rended Heart is a crisis intervention nonprofit seeking to provide immediate short-term housing, resources and services, to the sexually exploited and trafficked unto long-term restoration and/or reintegration program.
• Veronica’s Voice exists to empower women to exit from, to prevent the entry into, and to end all demand for prostitution-sex trafficking in the United States through survivor leadership as well operating a residential facility for women as they recover and build new lives away from the violence of the commercial sex trade.

Youth, Families & Food

• Avenue of Life‘s mission is to mobilize our community to equip and empower low-income individuals and families to be self-sustained and independent.
• Care Portal is a technology platform that connects vulnerable children and families to people who have something to give.
• Cultivate, Inc focuses on developing and protecting human dignity and is passionate about providing for the local community.  In partnership with county and state agencies, they help facilitate life stabilizing skills for gainful employment, job retention and family cohesion
• Freedom Fire Ministries mission is to strengthen the young people of the inner city by equipping them to guide the community spiritually, economically and socially. They are currently distributing care packages to children and families living in and around federal housing, and to the homeless. Please consider helping put together care packages from their list of items needed.
• Learning Club of KCK offers after-school and summer programming for youth in the urban core who need it most.
• Mission Adelante exists to make disciples by serving, sharing life, and sharing Jesus with people from all places.
• Mission Southside partners with churches, “helps” organizations, businesses, and individuals to bring hope to Johnson County, KS through the meeting of both physical and spiritual needs.
• Reconciliation Services mission is to cultivate a community seeking reconciliation to transform Troost from a dividing line into a gathering place, revealing the strength of all.
• The Hope Center | KC has a mission that remains, which is to develop healthy communities in Kansas City where the vulnerable can have hope and flourish.
• The Stop Trafficking Project has a vision to help end domestic minor sex trafficking by utilize the four strengths of communication, leadership, team development, and compassion.
• True Light Family Resource Center serves individuals and families by providing for critical needs, connecting to community resources, and teaching job and life skills in a safe and supportive environment.
• Urban Scholastic Center has a mission to build leaders from local communities, for local communities, through Jesus and education.

Pregnancy Centers

• Insight Women’s Center was established to reach out with Jesus’ love to women facing unexpected or unplanned pregnancies.
• Rachel House Pregnancy Resource Centers exist to offer compassionate care to men and women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy with a focus is to holistically empower the family unit through advocacy, education, mentoring and discipleship. Our goal is to positively impact families now and for generations to come.

Other Ministries

• All Nations focuses on making disciples and planting churches among the unreached.
• Catholic Charities – Kansas City | St. Joseph has a mission to answer the commandment of Jesus Christ to love through service, advocacy, and empowerment of the vulnerable and those in need throughout northern and western Missouri.
• Catholic Charities – NE Kansas is inspired by God’s love and compassion to provide unconditional love and necessary help to people of all faiths by stabilizing and strengthening individuals and families in need across the 21 counties of Northeast Kansas.
• Friends of India Christian Ministries has an Operation Saturation team, through our network of national missionaries and church plants throughout South Asia, and is identifying brothers and sisters in Christ who need special assistance during this crisis. They are purchasing and coordinating rice supplies that can both serve them and enable them to reach out in love to their neighbors.
• HOPE International desires to see men and women around the world find their soul’s satisfaction in Christ and become dignified, hope-filled providers in their families and communities.
• Lifesong for Orphans seeks to mobilize the Church to care for the orphan, where each member can provide a unique and special service: some to adopt, some to care, some to give.
• Love KC is a citywide ministry in Kansas City partnering in Prayer and Mission to Love our City to Life in Jesus with a vision to see every neighborhood in Kansas City adopted by one or more disciples living on mission where they live, learn, work, and play. We collaborate with Churches, Networks, Ministries and Not-for-profits.
• Moneytalk Financial Foundation has a mission is to provide basic financial life-skill education and continuing support for the underserved in a faith-based Christian environment.
• Set Apart has a mission to help people find their place and fulfill their purpose in God’s story.
• The Sending Project is facilitating a city-wide alliance of pastors and church mission leaders from Kansas City area churches so they can come together, learn from each other and serve alongside each other.
• UBN began in 1995 as a Bible-based, business consulting practice and evolved into Integrity Resource Center in 2001, a nonprofit organization which exists for “building faith and integrity at work.”

There are many, many more needs. Our goal is to start a conversation where we can share what we are learning about the best ways to help.  Please visit our Facebook page or send us an email with things you know about or hear about. We will sort through those and post them on this site. Submit an Idea 

For God’s Glory!
Matt Farmer, and your NCF Heartland team