Thelma’s Kitchen: A True Community Effort

Thelma’s Kitchen is turning three years old this August. Much has changed in the cafe’s short three years, but what hasn’t changed is the commitment to increasing food access and promoting deeper community engagement. Thelma’s Kitchen is an initiative of Reconciliation Services (RS), which for 30 years has worked to build relationships with feeding the hungry as the primary outreach. 

In the beginning, RS co-founder and Thelma’s Kitchen namesake, Thelma Altschul, walked along Troost Ave. inviting hungry neighbors to her Section 8 apartment to feed them. Her kindness served as the catalyst for RS’ community reconciliation. 

Food continues to be the primary outreach tool for RS in the community. The historic model established by Thelma evolved from traditional food pantry assistance and a Friday Night Community meal approach to Thelma’s Kitchen in 2018, Kansas City’s first donate-what-you-can café, which offers an innovative way to increase access to affordable, healthy food and increases community engagement.

Thelma’s is a true community effort and for over a year and a half prior to opening, we met with a variety of stakeholders in the neighborhood to hear what they wanted to see in a new cafe.

The call was clear – a place where people from all walks of life could come together to enjoy a healthy, delicious, affordable meal. In the summer of 2018, volunteers worked hours upon hours to ready the space for opening. Those who were able donated full price for a meal, or donated even more to pay it forward. Some donated less than full price for lunch, and some volunteered their time in exchange for lunch, yet another example of how the community came together to make Thelma’s possible.

In the months Thelma’s was open in 2018, 25 volunteers worked side by side each day to serve 500 lunches each week. Dave was a regular at the time. He always greeted everyone with a sincere, “Hey friend!” and didn’t let his disability keep him from participating in community life. He usually helped do the dishes, which he says gave him the opportunity to get better. “The more I help, the better,” he said.

In 2019, we served 24,712 lunches out of Thelma’s Kitchen, 70% of which went to feed our food insecure neighbors. Almost 18% of people in our area are estimated to be food insecure, a traumatic experience that means that people don’t know where their next meal will come from. At Thelma’s, they get more than just an affordable, healthy meal – they get access to all of the social and mental health services offered at RS and build meaningful relationships that help in the healing process.    

In 2020 when the pandemic hit and restaurants across the metro were forced to shut their doors, Thelma’s Kitchen and RS were deemed an essential service and we continued to serve our neighbors in need. Because in-cafe dining was no longer an option, we switched over our operations and began serving free, hot meals from the front door. 

In the first few months of the pandemic, as uncertainty and fear gripped the nation, volunteers and the Thelma’s Kitchen team served more than 13,000 free meals to our neighbors in need. During that time there was an elderly gentleman who came for lunch nearly every day. Each time, despite the signs that announced that meals were free, he would give whatever change he had in his pockets. “I want to help in any way that I can,” he said.  

As the pandemic roiled on, the Thelma’s Kitchen community, including almost 400 volunteers, remained committed to serving those in need. In August 2020, right before the cafe’s 2nd birthday, we began serving box lunches to our neighbors from a newly installed to-go window and delivering box lunches to businesses and organizations across the metro in support of our mission. 

More than 150 businesses and organizations have already ordered Thelma’s Box Lunch for group delivery. Every single meal goes to support the social and mental health services we offer to our neighbors and helps us continue to offer lunch for free to our food insecure neighbors. Because of the pandemic, we can no longer accept walk-in volunteers in exchange for lunch, instead we rely on our pay it forward tokens to cover meals for our neighbors who are unable to donate.

Thanks to the generosity of so many in Kansas City, we have already distributed 1,800 pay it forward tokens for a free lunch to our food insecure neighbors in 2021. Many of those tokens have gone to RS clients who stop by Thelma’s after receiving services on site. That’s mothers who lost their jobs during the pandemic and need help paying the bills so that they can help their kids through schools, unhoused people who need a new ID so that they can get off the streets, and guys fresh home from prison who received therapy so that they don’t go back behind bars.

More than 200 volunteers have served in Thelma’s this year – making sandwiches, cutting fruit, taking orders at the window, and so much more to help us serve over 8,000 meals already this year at 31st and Troost. 

More than anything on our 3rd birthday – we are incredibly grateful. Serving our neighbors healthy food is such an honor and it is awe-inspiring to see how many thousands of people have stepped up to make this community possible.

To celebrate 3 years, and to help us serve for many more, our friends at First Federal Bank have issued a birthday giving challenge to the corporate and philanthropic community with the goal of raising $10,000 each week in August for Thelma’s Kitchen. And we’re asking everyone in the community to go to our website to donate pay-it-forward tokens for us to distribute to our food insecure neighbors. For $11 you can purchase a token and sharing this challenge with your friends and colleagues will help spread the love even further. 

We serve every day in honor of our namesake, Thelma Altschul. When she started serving others here in the neighborhood, she lived in Section 8 housing, used food stamps and whatever she could gather, and even welcomed people into her tiny apartment when they had nowhere else to go. Her example is humbling, and her spirit lives on here at 31st and Troost thanks to people like you who choose to give selflessly. 

Thank you for helping Thelma’s Kitchen make it to three years. God willing, we’ll be here for many, many more.