Andy

What makes Kansas City a great town? What makes your community a wonderful place to live and the city be able to provide great education, living conditions, school districts and many other virtues we all enjoy living where we live?

I have constantly thought about making an impact on the lives of others and helping Kansas City become a great town not only in the Midwest but also in the entire country.  To make a community grow and flourish there are a few concepts we all must adhere too, when we understand these notions we will not only impact the lives of others directly or indirectly but we will help our city become one of the finest in the United States.

I will try to explain these notions as briefly and precisely as I can, I know that if we all follow them we will make an impact significantly and raise the bar of what Kansas City is and what the people of this town represent.

1 – Buying Local – I am sure we have ALL heard this time and again but we never consciously make an effort to “buy local and support local”, let me begin with a great example. Every time I need Gas I try to look for a gas station that is visibly not a QT, Philipp 66 owned and operated or a company run. Why do I want to give my dollars to someone that lives in Atlanta while they are exporting 80% of what we give to the business to a different city? Think about it… every dollar you spend on a company that is a chain store or operation will have 80% go to the headquarters and distributed to different cities as opposed to 100% in the city we call home that will impact the lives of your friends, family members, community members and others that you know. It is very vital to recognize that buying local not only effects your lives significantly but helps the lives of your family in a dramatic way.

2 – Joining Local Non for Profits – Kansas City is one of the biggest philanthropic cities in the united states. Let me repeat the words again “the biggest philanthropic city in the united states”. It is what we give to others will be given back to us in one way or the other, good comes around my friends. I am blessed to be a part of the Local Leawood Rotary Club, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation of KC, Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, Touched by Cancer foundation to name a few. These local groups and organizations not only make a constant effort to give back to the community we all call home but help in improving the lives of those that are less fortunate in our city. Helping Non for Profits will heavily impact how the living standards of our city is. Please know that there are many that sleep hungry at night and many that don’t have a blanket when it is below freezing.

3 – EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION – I think this is one of the most important points out of the ones I have mentioned, we need to make our community and locality more inducive where highly educated and talented individuals are attracted too. Stowers institute in KC,MO is a great example of how highly educated individuals with degrees from Harvard and many others have made KC there home because of the virtue of working at a great organization like this.

In a nut shell, BUYING LOCAL from businesses that are OWNED LOCAL will help our community to a great extent, for everything that you want I will bet there is a local place that sells it, SUPPORT A CAUSE that you hold dear too, it will impact the lives of those that live around us. Make an effort of making your organizations / businesses a place that will attract HIGHLY EDUCATED INDIVIDUALS from all over the world, America is a melting pot and we need to still show the world that we are a nation that believes in excellence through education and technology and MOST IMPORTANTLY do not fall short in giving your kids THE BEST EDUCATION YOU CAN, I am truly grateful to my parents to give me the FINEST of the education to make me who I am today. Let your kids travel, show them the world so they know what exists outside the beautiful neighborhoods of Leawood, Overlandpark, Platte City or Lees Summit or what the world is truly and most of the countries are not even close to what we as citizens of this great nation enjoy, this will only make them appreciate more and open there minds to new and productive thoughts.

With these in mind there is no reason that our loved city will not be a center of attraction and a city that will hold high regard when compared to others across the nation. Why cannot Kansas City hold the Democratic or the Republican Convention? Why shouldn’t we gold the G8 convention, why should companies think about Kansas City when they want an office location? There is no reason that we shouldn’t achieve these virtues for the town we call home.

With these thoughts in mind, I leave the local Latte Land owned and operated by a Kansas Citian and on the way I need to stop at the gas station that might be smaller in size but at the end of the day I know that my money is RIGHT HERE IN KANSAS CITY, the town I proudly call HOME.