Author Spotlight
Aanya Bansal
All of junior Lincoln King’s Saturday mornings are booked. He arrives at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in North Kansas City at 8:20 a.m. with an assortment of family members — always his dad and sometimes his uncle, brother and grandma when she’s in town.
Along with other St. Paul’s Breakfast volunteers, his family spends the next couple of hours preparing, packaging and bagging food to hand out to low-income Kansas City residents.
“There are a lot of people I recognize that come by every week,” Lincoln said. “There’s also a lot of new faces. Unfortunately, a lot of the people that don’t return we see come back months later or [are] in jail. I’ve had maybe 50 people that have disappeared and come back and been like ‘Oh yeah, sorry. I was in jail for a little bit.’”
Though Lincoln can’t solve all of their problems, he enjoys having a positive impact on the residents’ lives by talking to them and providing them with hot meals. Volunteering at St. Paul’s allows Lincoln to form connections with both his fellow volunteers and families who are there to pick up food.
People will walk or pull their car up to the drive-through system at the church and Lincoln will hand them plastic bags of potatoes, eggs, ham, oatmeal and toiletries.
“A family will walk up and tell you that they’ve had a bad week and their heater just broke and they can’t afford a new one, and you can help them out,” Lincoln said. “You can give them two weeks worth of groceries. It just leaves you with a good feeling that you can go home and be happy the rest of the day.”
Every week when Lincoln arrives at St. Paul’s, the organizers of St. Paul’s Breakfast, Kathy and Trish, greet him with a smile. They’ve gotten to know him over the span of seven years and have both written Lincoln recommendation letters for Eagle Scouts and band leadership roles.
“Whenever I walk in, they recognize me,” Lincoln said. “They go, ‘Lincoln, what’s up? How are you doing? I knew you’d come. We were waiting for you.’ So it’s great because I know them and they know me.”
Another recurring person Lincoln talks to at St. Paul’s is Dennis Wilson — a religious man Lincoln calls “the Reverend.” Wilson often swings by the church to pick up food to pass out around the neighborhood. Lincoln’s dad Scott King believes that Dennis hits all the bus stops along Minnesota Avenue, but most of what he does is a “mystery” — neither Lincoln or Scott have ever gone with him.
“He loads up his little car from floor to ceiling with food and takes off and he’s always got stories about people that he’s taking it to and going up and down the street and finding little bus stops,” Scott said. “He’s just always got stories about something.”
Every week, Lincoln helps prepare food for Dennis to take around the city. Sometimes the bags include sweet treats like donuts and cakes. When Dennis arrives, he and Lincoln discuss topics ranging from the weather to the welcome sign Lincoln has been building for the Donderdag Cyclocross Bike Park in Western Shawnee. According to Lincoln, the two will talk about whatever’s on their minds.
“Just last week, he came up and we were talking,” Lincoln said. “He was like, ‘You know what? I’m really proud of you. You come out here every week and you work so hard. I just can’t imagine this without you.’ That was really nice [to hear].”
Dennis has known Lincoln for two years and considers him to be like an “adoptive son.”
“I love this man’s attitude,” Dennis said. “I love his fortitude. I love his integrity because he keeps coming. A lot of young boys are home with the video games or still asleep. But [he’s here], and I applaud him for that.”
Lincoln has enjoyed meeting new people, whether that be KCK residents or other volunteers, and says that it’s important to spend time in a community apart from the one you live in.
“It’s easy to get in an East mindset,” Lincoln said. “If our heaters break, we can buy a new one or repair it. But it’s really important to go and see that not everyone is that same way. There’s a difference between the East community and the middle of KCK. St. Paul’s really broadened my mindset.”
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