Resilient Success Stories
To embrace and accelerate the positive momentum our region is building toward greater sustainability and climate resiliency, the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) and Climate Action KC will highlight selected regional leaders and community organizations at our Resilient Success Stories event at the Kauffman Foundation on December 13.
Throughout the nine counties and 119 municipalities of our bi-state region, leaders, businesses and residents are adapting to a changing climate, and building capacity at the local level to cope with hazardous weather trends, responding in ways that help maintain essential local functions and identity. It’s that capacity for adaptation that inspires our organization to share examples that are repeatable, scalable and accessible to other leaders within our metropolitan planning region.
Much of our Regional Climate Action Plan (which will be updated for 2025) includes essential actions with clear co-benefits to the community — things that we not only have to do but that we want to do! The same actions that emissions drawdown experts say we must take in order to hit our target goals align with the priorities of local leaders to better serve their constituents: priorities like decreasing utility bills through energy efficiency, cleaning up our air and water quality, fighting food insecurity, and providing relief from our urban heat island effect.
We want to spotlight those organizations who understand that sustainability means little if those processes are not also economically sustainable, especially for those living in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
Click here for more information and to register for Resilient Success Stories 2024
PITCH-A-THON
MARC and Climate Action KC want to uplift voices and ideas that have not yet been able to gain enough traction to reach their full potential. To raise awareness and connect participants to solutions, this year’s event will have a “pitch-a-thon” contest as part of the event on December 13.
Click here for more information on our Resilient Ideas Pitch Competition.
Throughout the nine counties and 119 municipalities of our bi-state region, leaders, businesses and residents are adapting to a changing climate, and building capacity at the local level to cope with hazardous weather trends, responding in ways that help maintain essential local functions and identity. It’s that capacity for adaptation that inspires our organization to share examples that are repeatable, scalable and accessible to other leaders within our metropolitan planning region.
We’d like to thank those who participated in this year’s Resilient Success Stories event, sharing examples of their work throughout the Kansas City region to advance sustainability and resiliency to the challenges brought about by climate change.
We again would like to recognize KC Can Compost, Johnson County Community College, the Kansas City Zoo & Aquarium, and Empower the Northeast (working with Jerusalem Farms).
You can see the event’s presentation slides here. Or if you’d like to see full-resolution presentation videos for each of our honorees, check out the Mid-America Regional Council YouTube page.
2024 was the first year of a new segment for the event — the Resilient Ideas pitch competition! In addition to the four honorees being recognized for their successful work, seven pitch applicants presented in front of our panel of judges for recognition and a cash award.
We would like to again recognize Ophelia’s Blue Vine Farm, Growing Outside the Box (from Operation Breakthrough’s Ignition Lab), My Region Wins!, Gary Kannenberg of The Tellus Group, ReNew Missouri, KC Farm School at Gibbs Road, and Kanbe’s Markets (with special thanks to Compost Man Stan for his performance and presentation on the Food Too Good to Waste Project).
We are pleased to announce our 2024 Resilient Ideas Pitch Competition winners:
- My Region Wins! for the Growth Category
- KC Farm School at Gibbs Road for the Established Category
- Growing Outside the Box program for the at-large audience choice selection
We want to thank everyone for their efforts in 2024 and we will see you again next year!
Eligibility
MARC and Climate Action KC are now accepting submissions for the 2024 Resilient Success Stories program. We hope to learn about new climate resiliency-focused policies, plans, projects or practices that are aligned with the KC Regional Climate Action Plan. Exemplary stories may focus on one or more categories: buildings and energy, sustainable transportation, urban greening, circular economy, food and agriculture, and community health and resilience. Resilient success stories are sought from public, private or nonprofit sectors, or from interested community members. Preference will be given to regional and local projects in the Greater Kansas City region.
Success stories can be fully completed projects, or fully-funded projects in the initial stages of implementation.
The deadline for story submissions is September 13.
SELECTION PROCESS
MARC will convene a group of local judges to review and select resilient success stories to be presented at our event on December 13. Project sponsors for the selected stories will be asked to prepare a single powerpoint slide showcasing their organization’s efforts. They must also make themselves available for a video shoot and interview with MARC staff, which will produce an introduction for their presentation at the event.
Schedule:
August 1 (Call for stories opens),
September 13 (Story submissions due),
October 4 (Selected project sponsors are notified),
December 13 (Resilient Success Stories event)
Example Stories
Prior success stories have focused on tying together social equality, economic vitality and environmental stewardship in ways that maximize community impact and benefit. Stories ranged in their focus from green buildings to watershed restoration, complete streets, urban agriculture and composting. Project sponsors included public, private and nonprofit organizations across the MARC region.
Example story 1: Big Shoal Farm: In 2020, a 7-acre farm located on undeveloped land in Gladstone’s Big Shoal Heritage Area was created. The Big Shoal Farm is a project of the City of Gladstone and supported by nonprofit friends of Atkins-Johnson Farm and Museum. Using modern farming techniques, the farm produces sweet corn, pumpkin, sunflowers and honey, with techniques demonstrating how crops are raised using fewer inputs to abate erosion. The farm also displays how new crop products can protect themselves from insect and disease via genetic enhancements. Crops are produced, harvested and sold with the help of volunteers and hired labor from the local 4-H clubs and other school programs (employing 20+ students during the growing season. Crops are sold at farm stands in Gladstone. Visitors to the farm can pick their own pumpkins and sunflowers, with honey sold in the museum gift shop. Excess produce is donated to area nonprofits, making locally-grown fresh food available to urban residents who have limited access.
Example story 2: Lee’s Summit Green Infrastructure implementation: The City of Lee’s Summit installed green stormwater features that function alongside traditional inlet and pipe-designs and the existing public storm sewer system. As of the end of 2022, green infrastructure has been installed at three sites: Maple Street, Grand Avenue and Arnold Hall. Geographically, the sites are all within walking distance of City Hall, in the heart of the downtown corridor. The City took a holistic approach to the green infrastructure systems on these three sites by viewing how stormwater is captured and conveyed in and around the surrounding community. It was implemented to provide continuous collection of stormwater runoff from the sites, intercepting rain where it falls. In addition to providing storage and infiltration, these resilient solutions address localized flooding while managing the burden and risk to the downstream pipe and open channel systems.
Example story 3: Kansas City Public Library: In 2021, KCPL’s newly appointed Library Director and CEO, Dr. John Herron, charged the library with becoming “a community leader in green practices.” An office for energy and sustainability was established and a series of programs and projects were developed to reduce the net impacts of waste, enhance asset performance and occupant wellbeing, and increase equity across the library district by improving environmental literacy. An early goal was to create a dashboard to aggregate the data and stories associated with climate action initiatives and adoption of sustainable solution. The dashboard provides a scope description, narrative summary, data visualization and resources for climate resilience strategies. Libraries are on the frontline of an information crisis. Increasingly, access to reliable and actionable information is becoming harder to find. Scholars believe that social divisions and information reliability will further degrade as environmental stressors, such as climate change, increase. Because of this, KCPL views climate resiliency as an objective for achievements in literacy.
Example story 4: Kompass Kapital: An existing five-story, 91,200 square-foot building underwent major innovative design as part of Kompass Kapital’s modernization of its physical properties. The renovation became an example of what other business leaders can do to show value for their employees and the community at-large. Improvements went back to the studs, incorporating energy efficient strategies and healthy building interiors from initial conception, Rainwater capture systems were installed so that domestic plumbing fixtures would not require potable water. An onsite generator was installed for backup power. Renovations even made improvements to the exterior (including new glazing, walls and insulation). Rather than construct a new building from the ground-up, a more resource-efficient approach of reuse was selected, and the end result was a LEED certified energy efficient building created with reduced waste and a more eco-friendly footprint for the company.