For Immediate Release (DRAFT)

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Nov. 16, 2022) — Essential Families is a nonprofit that uses state-of-the-art technology to provide preventive parental support and mental health counseling services to families that are at or just above the poverty level.

As a Missouri-registered nonprofit, Essential Families has a primary service area of 23 counties within the Kansas City area, but its robust video capabilities position it to provide services to states and rural communities throughout the United States.

Given that important mission, Essential Families is thrilled to announce its participation in Kansas City’s Essential Broadband Pilot, a much-needed initiative that is bringing computers and high-speed internet access to 69 families in an underserved part of our community.

The pilot, a collaboration between the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Shumaker Family Foundation, and the Health Forward Foundation, is slated to begin Nov. 17, 2022.

The nine-square-mile pilot area is bounded by Ninth Street on the north, Gregory Boulevard on the south, Indiana Avenue on the east, and The Paseo on the west. Prospect Avenue will serve as a main corridor for the project.

Kansas City economic development and health officials, along with the U.S. Census Bureau, have identified this area as the most underserved population in the greater Kansas City area.

The approximately 20,000 residents in the pilot area are unquestionably high-need, with a median income of $23,812 and a median home value of $57,755.

Essential Families needs additional financial support to meet the anticipated high demand for the Essential Broadband Pilot. Why? Because this is a unique broadband initiative that provides much-needed “wrap around” services that ensure digital equity and digital economic development for all.

It is vital that these families obtain access to the internet, which is now just as important as electricity or any other municipal utility. With this access, Essential Families will provide all of its preventive services through its proprietary, HIPAA-compliant NoW video platform. The services are:

• Virtual home visits: Weekly 90-minute sessions with trained professionals who will support expectant mothers along with parents, or guardians, or children ages birth to 5.
• Mental telehealth: Providing six sessions with a licensed therapist or counselor with no wait list or EAP model.
• EveryThing: A Google-like search engine that puts additional community resources at your fingertips.

Pilot participants will also receive:

• Assistance applying for subsidized internet service through the federal Affordable Connectivity Program
• A laptop computer (courtesy of PCs for People’s Kansas City location)
• Computer and internet training
• Z Trip (transportation)
• Child care assistance
• Digital workforce development by teaching participants highly marketable computer skills

For Essential Families, the Essential Broadband Pilot goes to the “heart” of its mission, in part because its office is located within the service area.

But more importantly, the pilot is serving an area with special meaning to Essential Families founder and chief executive officer, Terri English-Yancy.

“I am excited, and forever grateful, to return to the area of my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother to pilot and prove how to move children and families forward,” she said, “by eliminating the digital divide and enabling economic development for all instead of keeping the status quo.”

English-Yancy, and the entire Essential Families board of directors, is extremely thankful to the three foundations for the financial support they have provided to our organization.

[This is where I would insert the quotes from Shumaker and Kauffman representatives.]

About Essential Families

Essential Families is a Kansas City, Missouri-based nonprofit established in 2020 to serve families that fall slightly above the income threshold for Head Start and other government programs. It covers 23 counties in and around Kansas City. Essential Families is a leader in financial transparency by providing real-time information to donors on how their dollars are being used through its mobile app.

Essential Families founder and chief executive officer, Terri English-Yancy, holds an undergraduate degree in child and family development from Southwest Missouri State University (now known as Missouri State University) and two master’s degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (in curriculum and instruction) and from Webster University (in management and leadership).

Before founding Essential Families, English-Yancy spent 24 years with the Family Conservancy, where she oversaw a 12-person staff as the program manager of the Head Start Home-Based program.

For more information about Essential Families, please go to our website at efamilies.org

For Essential Families, the Essential Broadband Pilot goes to the “heart” of its mission, in part because its office is located within the service area.

But more importantly, the pilot is serving an area with special meaning to Essential Families founder and chief executive officer, Terri English-Yancy.

“i am excited, and forever grateful, to return to the area of my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother to
pilot and prove how to move children and families forward,” she said, “by eliminating the digital divide and enabling economic development for all instead of keeping the status quo.”

English-Yancy, and the entire Essential Families board of directors, is extremely thankful to the three foundations for the financial support they have provided to our organization.

Designed, Built, and Powered by