As the summer heats up in Kansas City, here’s how you can help Cool KC
Kansas City has kicked off its Cool KC Extreme Heat Plan, and there are many ways community members can help.
The extreme heat plan, which runs from June to September, aims to keep homeless people and other vulnerable populations safe. The initiative relies on a coordinated donation system to equip vulnerable people with the supplies they need to stay safe in the blistering Missouri temperatures. Another goal is to have free public water access across the city, according to the initiative’s website.
Kansas City residents can help in a variety of ways. Individuals can contribute money, water, sunscreen or bug spray, or volunteer at a cooling site. Cooling sites are locations where people can go to escape the heat. Donations can be dropped off at the Heartland Center for Behavioral Change, Community Services League or A Turning Point.
Once an item is donated, outreach teams and agencies will collect it and distribute it to vulnerable individuals.
How you or your business can help Cool KC
Monetary donations to Cool KC can be made online and residents can sign up to donate, volunteer or help in other ways through an online form.
Along with these life-saving measures, the initiative will distribute harm reduction supplies and conduct heat illness response education sessions. The purpose of these sessions is to inform community members about the signs of heat illness so they can help their neighbors.
Businesses and organizations can get involved, too, by signing up to become a cooling center or donation drop-off and pick-up site.
Amber Holmes, an employee at the City’s Office of Unhoused Solutions, said, “the options are limitless when it comes to what you can contribute.”
Holmes also said the city is not dictating how involved organizations should operate. They want organizations to contribute what they can when they can.
“We’ve made this a very open opportunity to bring forth what entities can contribute,” Holmes told the Star. “So those cooling sites are going to be varying across the region.”
Cool KC Extreme Heat Plan is for everyone
Those involved with the initiative met at Healing House KC at 112 South Elmwood Ave on Friday to kick it off. Drop-in shelters, housing programs, transitional living shelters, faith organizations and government employees were all represented at the event.
Holmes applauded the coordination between the different groups.
“This is exactly what every effort needs to look like in our community,” Holmes said. “From here, we just, we learn what this looks like in every initiative going forward.”
Josh Henges, Kansas City’s homeless prevention coordinator, said in a speech at the kickoff event that this is “one of the most coordinated events Kansas City has ever seen.”
While the Cool KC Extreme Heat Plan initiative was made with homeless people in mind, Holmes said it is for everyone in Kansas City.
“This is not just for the unhoused community,” Holmes said. “This is for any vulnerable individual, elderly people, kids, people that are in their cars, people that don’t have AC in their homes.”
Kansas City is projected to have temperatures above average this summer, according to the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center.
“Nobody is exempt from heat,” Holmes said.
