We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennifer McCartney. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennifer below.
Jennifer, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Is there a heartwarming story from your career that you look back on?
My non=profit, Kansas City Heroes, help those struggling with Houselessness. One guy we met, Sebastien, was houseless and we were able to connect him with housing services. Sebastien got housed and immediately started paying it forward. Sebastien now volunteers full time for alot of the groups helping the houseless. He now leads one of our Houseless picnics each week and is a beautiful example of paying it forward! We love instilling hope in those hurting. #BeBlessedByBlessingOthers
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a retired pro-boxer who started a pay it forward non=profit to help and inspire people in need. We have a Houseless outreach where we have a big Houseless Picnic each week and serve around 200 ppl. We have a Housing Volunteer who helps people find housing and then we have over 7000 members that donate furniture and beds for those getting housed. We also have a Seniors outreach to show our elders that they are loved. We will have an Adopt a Senior for Christmas event happening in December. We provide acts of kindness to inspire others to pay it forward. I am also a single mom :)
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
I documented every act of kindness we performed. I made sure and networked with other organizations in Kansas City that shared similar outreaches. We made friends with media and government so we could spread our mission all over KC. We practice what we preach :)
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When Covid-19 hit Kansas City we lost alot of volunteers. Without volunteers we cannot help people so we had to go into emergency mode. We found ways for people to volunteer from home and our remaining crew of volunteers went into overdrive. We started reaching out to our Seniors and would do porch drop offs. We were able to maintain safety clothing and masks for volunteers and we continued to help others. We still had our weekly picnics for those hungry. We had a phone crew that would just call and check on people. We made it work. We are still helping people today and looking forward to helping so many more!
Contact Info:
- Website: kc-heroes.org
- Instagram: @kansas_city_heroes
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.mccartney
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-mccartney-093b2813b/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kansas_Heroes
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw-FDsRYuoJML7bfvWUissg
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/groups/KansasCityHeroes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGcZKPnDVJw Our Hallmark Short film
Image Credits
All images are mine except the boxing one. Randy Bacon is the photographer