Food Archives – The Kansas City Defender

KC Defender & Urban League Join Forces: People’s Free Food Program Delivers to 100+ Black Families Across KC Metro

By Ryan S. ● Mutual Aid & Community Programs ● November 18, 2025

This weekend, the KC Defender and Urban League delivered fresh food to over 100 Black families across Kansas City, sourced from the city’s last remaining full-service Black owned grocery store, to circulate our dollars back into our community. Each box included the KC Defender’s latest edition with investigative reporting, practical resources, and political education.

Latest in Food

FOOD IS FREEDOM: Hamer Program & Black KC Farmers Continue Free Food Deliveries as SNAP Cuts Loom

By Ryan S. ● Agriculture ● October 29, 2025

The evening the food boxes arrived, a Black neighbor wept.

Mass of KC Black Youth & Leaders Rally in Force to Build Hamer Free Food Program

By Ryan S. ● Mutual Aid & Community Programs ● September 14, 2025

In the wake of Sun Fresh’s closure and the deepening food apartheid along Kansas City’s Prospect corridor, the Black community responded with power. The Hamer Free Food Program—named for revolutionary freedom fighter Fannie Lou Hamer—has officially launched, with more than 60 volunteers joining Farm Days to grow, harvest, and deliver free produce directly from Black farms to Black families.

KC’S BLACK FARMS UNITE: Hamer Free Food Program Launches Amid Growing Food Apartheid

By KC Defender Staff ● Mutual Aid & Community Programs ● August 19, 2025

The KC Defender, KC Black Urban Growers, Ivanhoe Neighborhood Association, and every Black farm in the KC metro are launching the Hamer Free Food Program. Free CSA boxes from Black farms will reach elders and families near 31st and Prospect after Sun Fresh’s closure. Volunteer, donate, or partner to scale it.

Thousands of Black KC Residents Plunged into Food Desert as Sun Fresh Shutters

By Ryan S. ● Justice ● August 12, 2025

Sun Fresh, the last full-service grocery store for miles around 31st & Prospect, has closed, leaving thousands of Black Kansas Citians in a food desert. City Hall found $800 million for a new jail, but not enough to keep bread and baby formula on the shelf.

She Didn’t See Herself in KC’s Food Scene—So She Built Her Own

By Tiffany Watts ● Food ● August 4, 2025

A queer Black woman’s journey from backyard pop-up to Orange by Devoured: a pizzeria that claims space, sparks joy, and leads without apology.

A New Era on 39th Street: An Alcohol-Free Bar Takes Root

By Tiffany Watts ● Food ● July 15, 2025

In a neighborhood built to keep them out, three sober visionaries create space for healing, joy, and radical inclusion.

KC Defender Distributes $5000 to Black People on 31st & Prospect & Happy Foods

By Ryan S. ● Defender People's Programs ● June 25, 2025

We gave $5,000 in no-strings-attached cash to Black people at 31st & Prospect as a declaration that our people deserve love, not surveillance. Resources, not cages. In a city built to crush our joy, we chose to flood it with life.

KC Defender Launches Black Economic Justice Desk & Names Tiffany Watts As Lead Reporter

By Tiffany Watts ● Black Business ● May 30, 2025

We’re thrilled to welcome Tiffany Watts as our first-ever full-time reporter. In her inaugural piece as Lead Reporter for Black Economic Justice, Food & Culture, Tiffany investigates the forces threatening Black economic survival—and just as powerfully, celebrates the brilliance of Black chefs, salon owners, growers, and organizers reimagining what a liberated economy looks like in our city.

TOWN HALL: Kansas City’s Crisis of Black Food, Land & Survival — And How We Fight Back

By KC Defender Staff ● Agriculture ● March 20, 2025

Kansas City’s Black farmers and urban growers are leading the fight for food sovereignty. Join The KC Defender and The Kansas City Call for an urgent Town Hall to strategize, organize, and take action.