What’s happened to the Community Assistance Council?

By Max Goodwin

For decades, the Community Assistance Council, a non-profit organization near Ruskin High School, has operated as a one-stop shop for people needing food, clothes, or housing.

Now, CAC is considering how to expand beyond that, adjusting its approach and reintroducing itself to the community.

A newly hired executive director, Netta Thompson, began in October. Thompson is a former healthcare worker who served as COO of Uzazi Village, a non-profit addressing inequities in healthcare for Black mothers and children. She worked for 17 years in a Level One trauma center and is also a part-time professor at Metropolitan Community College in community health work.

“One of the things we saw from Netta was her want to collaborate and establish bridges,” said Cecil Wattree, president of the CAC board of directors.

Thompson is working with the Hickman Mills School District on a potential partnership with its Real World Learning Program engaging students with the task of reimagining how CAC can best serve the community.

Thompson began her journey into non-profit work when she noticed a need for Black nurses working as breastfeeding educators for families in the mother-baby unit of the hospital she worked in. She found Uzazi Village was already addressing the issue here in Kansas City. She began working with the nonprofit as they trained women to become doulas who then educate and advocate for pregnant women.

That’s how Thompson entered a career in nonprofit and she says she’s never looked back. She was promoted to COO of Uzazi Village and worked in that position for seven years.

She says her goal is for CAC to help build healthy families.

“It’s not about the role or title for me,” Thompson said. “I just want to be able to work in my community and serve the best way that I possibly can.”

Another goal is to have all staff trained as community health workers, which Thompson is able to do herself. She describes community health workers as liaisons to the community, helping navigate healthcare and social services, as well as filling out Medicaid or Medicare applications and such. A bilingual employee was recently hired as a community navigator, helping better assist Spanish-speaking clients.

There has been staff turnover as the organization changed executive directors. Three of five positions as community navigators are currently filled. Community navigators fill a similar role as community health workers at CAC. Thompson has managed this rebranding during a short time as some of the biggest decisions are still being considered.

“Nonprofit in itself can be a little challenging. It’s never a walk in the park,” Thompsons said. “But I’m managing.”

Last year, CAC received $1 million in funding from the state budget. Half of that is supposed to be used for new facilities. The other half is being used to pay for operating costs.

While that money is only available to CAC through the end of June, the concept of what a new space could function as is still coming together. A plan is being considered to acquire or rent multiple office locations around the metro or south Kansas City area.

“We’re vacillating between do we need a campus or do we need satellite locations,” Wattree said.

Wattree envisions a CAC that could have satellite locations in Grandview, Marlborough, and still have a presence at its Ruskin location. The food pantry has already become a mobile food pantry, allowing CAC’s reach to expand to people who can’t reach the building near Ruskin High School.

Thompson says she’s noticed an increase in people needing items from the food pantry later, and she expects that need to continue to grow as food prices are expected to continue to increase and federal workers are laid off.

For many years, CAC was the only organization providing this kind of help in south Kansas City. Last year, Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joseph opened a new location on Longview Rd. with an investment of $6 million. Wattree said CAC is moving past an attitude of competition. He recently met with the CEO of Catholic Charities to discuss how the two organizations can work together.

“We talked about where one organization ends and another can begin, because we want to have a collaborative spirit,” Wattree said.

Wattree credits Thompson with the change. More change is coming soon they say. In the next few months, CAC will have to make decisions and purchases for their new building or spaces, however they decide to move forward. Wattree says it’s clear which direction the board is leaning. They would like to have more satellite locations and cover a wider area.

“What does it look like for us to gradually expand our services instead of us just trying to be a one-stop shop for everything,” Wattree said.