Help Us Get ROLLing! – Restoration & Outreach through Learning & Leadership

Our motto for this campaign is ROLL: Restoration & Outreach through Learning & Leadership. To restore our neighborhood and transform Town Fork Creek into a vibrant community, the Town Fork Creek Neighborhood Association (TFCNA) needs to reach out to our 6,000 neighbors and pass the torch to a younger generation. Your contribution will help us do the hard work of outreach – creating a website, making calls, printing flyers, and knocking on doors. With the $20,000 we raise, we can give our dozens of volunteers the tools to attract neighbors to the new Mary L. Kelly Center and its amenities. Volunteers can only do so much, though, so the bulk of your contributions will be used to hire an organizer whose job will be to focus like a laser on improving the lives of Town Fork Creek residents. This organizer will raise the profile of the neighborhood and make sure its needs are addressed, whether they be enforcing codes, reducing crime and poverty, or improving educational opportunities. We have our work cut out for us, but with your help, we can help get Town Fork Creek ROLLing!

Where We’ve Come From – Hard Work in the Face of Challenges

Town Fork Creek, a neighborhood bound by Brush Creek, 63^rd Street, Paseo, and Swope Parkway, has seen its share of challenges. Nearly 1 out of 5 homes are vacant, the poverty rate hovers around 30%, and the unemployment rate is double that of Kansas City’s as a whole. Despite these struggles, Town Fork Creek is home to one of Kansas City’s oldest neighborhood organizations. Founded in 1982, the Town Fork Creek Neighborhood Association (TFCNA) has been blessed by a faithful core membership, many of whom are long-time homeowners who are now senior citizens. After decades of hard work in the face of serious headwinds, the work of TFCNA is about to pay off in a transformative way. Let us show you where we’re going.

Where We’re Going – Say Hello to the Mary L. Kelly Community Center

Meet Mary Kelly – the 87 year-old (but very young at heart) namesake of the new Mary L. Kelly Community Center. Mary, a former nurse at Veterans Hospital and current board president of Swope Parkway Renaissance/Upper Room, has been a long-time community activist in the Town Fork Creek neighborhood. She has as much passion for holding politicians’ feet to the fire as she does for dancing! To honor Mary’s work, the former Graceland Elementary building, which has been unoccupied for years, will open in September 2013 as the Mary L. Kelly Community Center. The Center will have a gym, health club, dance studio, computer lab, jazz museum, and café, all of which will be free for neighbors to use. Even more importantly, the Kelly Center will be home to the first headquarters for TFNCA in its 30+ year history. This new community asset will provide a safe place for children, opportunities for parents and seniors to socialize, and the ability for the TFCNA to transform the neighborhood. To get ROLLing, though, we need your help.

It won’t take much to help Town Fork Creek reach its potential. We have the Kelly Center. We have our hard-working neighbors. Now we need you. Share this with your friends and family. Donate. Help us realize our potential!

What’s the Bang for my Buck?

See how each dollar you donate will help the neighbors of Town Fork Creek!