Kansas City Mom Collective is featuring an organization each month that supports Kansas City families. We hope to introduce you to a new organization and provide ways you can support their mission. To nominate an organization to be featured here, email us.
The Single Mom KC invites single moms into community, equips their families in spiritual and emotional growth and provides resources so families can walk in restoration.
The Story of The Single Mom KC
According to the U.S. Census, 40 percent of children in Kansas City are growing up in single-parent homes, and those families are about five times as likely to experience poverty as married-parent families. This statistic has far-reaching implications for lifelong health and well-being for both mother and child.
The Single MOM KC (TSMKC) was founded in 2009 by Misty Hughes. Hughes saw TSMKC as a defiance of these statistics. As a single mom, Hughes knew first-hand the exhaustion and isolation that come with bearing the full responsibility of parenthood and provision. She spearheaded a movement for other single-mom families, and soon a grassroots organization of women gathered together to provide hope, courage, and community to each other.
Twelve years later, TSMKC has formalized its foundational priorities of hope, courage, and community into a comprehensive, holistic program that equips families to be restored to a better story. TSMKC invites the 61,600+ single-mother families in the Kansas City metro area to join together in communities of solid, stable, growing families. TSMKC is peer-led, faith based and highly collaborative, with trained single-mother leaders implementing most of its programming.
The Single Mom KC helps Moms like Maria. Maria is the proud mother of two beautiful boys. She became a single mom when her youngest was five months old. The realities of single motherhood meant that even with a solid education and nursing career, Maria found herself and her boys homeless, sleeping on couches and living out of her car. Maria describes the anger and resentment that grew within her to become all-consuming, and the emotional pain so immense it became physical.
Everything in her life was impacted by this turmoil — even her boys. Maria turned to TSMKC and credits them for “feeding her soul” and getting to a better place in her life with greater peace and a comfortable apartment! Maria is now one of the trained leaders helping fellow Moms forge their paths.
Clothed With Dignity Boutique
One of TSMKC’s outreach programs is their Clothed With Dignity Boutique. Single mothers who are raising children without a spouse or partner in the home are invited to shop at no cost. The boutique caters to the Moms themselves by carrying items just for them including all sizes, styles and seasons of clothing and shoes in good condition, jewelry, purses and personal hygiene toiletries.
Ways to Support The Single Mom KC
Without volunteers, none of the successes at The Single Mom KC would be possible. Volunteers and fundraising take on all sorts of forms.
Host a drive
Businesses, churches and schools can participate by hosting toiletries, underwear and socks drives and purse and jewelry drives.
Give your time
A great way to serve as a family is to help sort clothing for the Clothed with Dignity Boutique. Adults can also volunteer by helping to provide childcare at TSMKC programs and to greet and welcome single moms at various events. Those who love to cook can even help provide meals to moms at their workshops and gatherings.
Donate money
Donations allow TSMKC to budget and plan throughout the year for operating expenses, monthly gatherings, workshops, resources for single mothers in crisis and much more. You can Join the Family Circle with a monthly donation of various amounts.
There are great places for individuals, groups, men, women, and teen helpers to serve! Contact Michelle Hartegan, [email protected], for more information on the opportunities outlined and beyond.
How To Join The Single Mom KC Community
If you are a single mom looking for anything from connection to assistance TSMKC is here for you. You can take part in their monthly dinners, workshops, events and so much more by connecting with their team.
The Single Mom KC can be found online and on Facebook and Instagram.
