The last full service grocery store for miles surrounding 31st & Prospect closed its doors last week, plunging thousands of poor and Black folks further into an already existing food desert. But rather than waiting on City Hall for a solution, The People have decided to fight back.
Today, The Kansas City Defender, KC Black Urban Growers, the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Association, and every major Black farm in the KC metro, are uniting to launch the Hamer Free Food Program, a first-of-its-kind Black-led mutual aid program that distributes fresh produce from Black farms straight to Black families within a one mile radius of 31st and Prospect at ZERO COST.
What is the Hamer Free Food Program?
Named in honor of Fannie Lou Hamer, often heralded for her Black liberation & civil rights activism, she is less known for her pioneering role in founding the Freedom Farm Cooperative in 1969.
The Hamer Free Food Program purchases produce directly from Black farms including: Young Family Farm KC, Global One Urban Farming, Sankara Farm, Ophelia’s Blue Vine Farm, and Pearl Family Farm, and the prgoram is coordinated by KC Black Urban Growers, Ivanhoe, and The Defender.
In our September-October phase one rollout, we will deliver free boxes packed with nutrient-dense produce to 50 households within a mile of 31st and Prospect, prioritizing Black elders and neighbors facing mobility barriers after the Sun Fresh closure.
We are training Community Food Leaders & Volunteers to harvest, pack, deliver, and organize. Every box includes a mini print edition of The Defender with revolutionary political education, food justice information, Black farmer information, and ways to plug into the movement.
At the bottom of this piece we have direct links to sign up to receive food boxes, to volunteer, to donate, or to partner.
Why Now: Food Insecurity & the War on Black Food Systems
Food insecurity is spiking nationally and it hits Black families hardest. In 2023, about 22% of Black people in the U.S. experienced food insecurity, more than twice the rate of white people; 27% of Black children lived in food-insecure households. Missouri’s overall rate reached 15.4% in 2023, above the national average. Here at home, Harvesters reports about 1 in 3 Black individuals in the Kansas City region is food insecure, and estimates 23.3% of Black households faced food insecurity in 2023.
This is nothing other than food apartheid, created by policy. When the only full-service grocery for miles is gone and transit is cut, when WIC and SNAP are slashed, when elders cannot walk to fresh produce, when youth juggle two buses for basics, you get hunger by design. Our response is infrastructure, and Black community-power building.
How It Works
- Direct farm purchasing at a fair rate. We standardize pay at at market rate per pound, which in the pilot purchases roughly 667 pounds of fresh produce for direct distribution, while injecting direct reliable cash-flow into Black growers’ income.
- Doorstep-distance access. Priority for households within a half-mile to one mile of 31st & Prospect, with delivery or easy pick-up for elders and low-mobility neighbors.
- Community Food Leaders. Youth and Mutual Aid organizers learn seeding, harvesting, packing, logistics, and organizing, building a pipeline of Black agrarian leadership.
Who is feeding the East Side now
With Sun Fresh closed, Black food providers are stepping up. Our program is a historic and unprecedented effort, but there are many incredible programs throughout the city. Here’s who’s involved in ours:
- Partner farms: Young Family Farm KC, Global One Urban Farming, Sankara Farm, Ophelia’s Blue Vine Farm, Pearl Family Farm.
- KC Black Urban Growers: coordinating farm stands, grower support, and education.
- Ivanhoe Neighborhood Association: long-standing food distributions that feed thousands annually.
- The Kansas City Defender Mutual Aid Team: logistics, doorstep deliveries, organizing, and a print edition inside each box.
What Comes Next
Once we hit our goals in our initial prototype, we will scale distributions in 2026 and move toward a worker-owned Black Food Co-op that anchors Black food sovereignty across KC. This is how we replace starvation politics with a living system of care and sovereignty. It starts with boxes on porches and grows into a permanent, community-controlled food infrastructure.
How to plug in
- CLICK HERE to Join, Volunteer or Organize with the Community Food Leaders.
- Donate to the Program by CLICKING HERE to expand boxes, routes, and stipends.
- Become a partner organization by filling out this form.
- Grow with us. Black farms and gardeners, reach out to join the network.
Subscribe to our free newsletter or email us if your organization wants in. Ria@kansascitydefender.com
When it comes down to it, we have always relied on ourselves to keep our people fed, safe, and alive.
Notes & Sources: Program details, partners, timeline, and compensation model are documented in the Hamer Free Food Program plan. National and regional food insecurity data from USDA ERS, Feeding America, and Harvesters. (Feeding America, map.feedingamerica.org, Feeding America Action, Harvesters, Census.gov, JAMA Network, Harvard Chan School of Public Health)
