Adrion Roberson and his wife, Vicky, don’t leave you guessing about the focus of the Kansas City, Kansas, organization they established in 2009. The name says it all: KC United! Youth/Family Education & Sports Initiative.

But the nonprofit’s purpose extends beyond balls and books.

Its broader aim is to be a “holistic after-school ministry that touches the heart of the students as well as the heart of the parents,” said Adrion Roberson, 64, who serves as executive director of KC United! (KCU) and lead pastor of Kingdom Community Church 58:12 in KCK.

“And we’re going to do everything in our power to help them seize those moments, celebrate with them when they seize those moments, and keep building what we believe is what God wants us to do here in Wyandotte County and beyond.”

The Robersons are both KCK natives. As a longtime youth football coach, Adrion Roberson started KCU to produce a pipeline of well-prepared players for middle school teams in the city.

The sports program draws more than 700 players and cheerleaders in the nine-week season. The league includes players from kindergarten through sixth grade in KCK. It has older players from Kansas City, Missouri.

Roberson works with the public schools and has forged a close relationship with Bishop Ward, a Catholic high school in KCK. He serves on its board and its president sits on the KCU board.

Roberson said Bishop Ward has improved its on-field performance by offering scholarships to some KCU players. In turn, the players and their families get expanded education opportunities with the choice of attending a parochial school.

STEAM and More

As other community needs presented themselves, KCU added three other initiatives to the sports league between 2016 and 2020:

• The Mary Ann Flunder science, technology, engineering, the arts, and math (S.T.E.A.M.) sports/arts camp
• The Harold D. Foster after-school reading, math, and physical activity program
• The Game Changers training program for parents

Flunder was a nonprofit executive, college administrator, and businesswoman (who owned a neighborhood store with her husband). She introduced Roberson to the concept of STEAM and died in March 2016 just before they were to partner on their first summer camp.

Foster was an eighth-grade teacher in KCK who, Roberson said, “planted seeds in me, and a bunch of other amazing young men and women who look like me, about our capacity to support our community and that we owed our community.”

The two kids’ programs served approximately 80 kids combined in 2023. KCU is looking to rebound from a down fundraising year in 2024 that forced it to trim programming.

The four-week, full-day STEAM camp includes breakfast and lunch and enrolls students in grades three through eight from KCK and KCMO.

The curriculum includes introductions to topics like artificial intelligence. Staff have also introduced campers to boxing as a form of self-discipline and employed two certified counselors to provide social/emotional support.

Mornings are generally spent on STEM topics. The afternoon includes 45 minutes of physical activity and discussions about subjects like critical thinking and adaptive leadership.

The art component comes in the form of a mural or some other community project.

Broadening Horizons

STEAM campers have even taken field trips to Arrowhead Stadium, home to the National Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs and their star quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The visits introduce the campers to the unique engineering facets of the stadium.

The tours can also produce unexpected benefits, such as the time a young woman athletic trainer accompanied the tour.

When the participants started fantasizing about starring in the NFL, the athletic trainer told them professionals like her can make annual salaries of approximately $100,000 by wrapping sprains and performing other duties. The information gave the campers something to think about, especially when hearing that would-be stars are one serious injury away from having their dreams shattered.

Roberson said the takeaway was that, hey, if you are good enough, and some big-time college program wants to pay for your education with a football scholarship, then by all means, take it.

But the interaction with the athletic trainer showed another connection between sports and education and planted the seed that, “I may not be the next Patrick Mahomes, but I could have my own path. You know what I mean?” Roberson said.

Tutoring and Parenting

The after-school tutoring program, which runs from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. three days a week, prepares students for state testing in the spring. It focuses on a few academically underperforming elementary and middle schools in the KCK school district.

Game Changers began as an adjunct to the sports program but evolved to run every two weeks for parents of students in the after-school tutoring program. KCU works with K-State Research and Extension and other community partners on a curriculum that covers spirituality and four other areas:

• Physical — Diet, exercise, and rest
• Social/Emotional — How to recognize and overcome trauma;
• Educational — Support in areas like earning a GED, leadership, and jobs/careers
• Financial — Budgeting, savings, etc.

Most participants are single mothers. Many live with their children in subsidized housing. Each cohort usually includes seven to 10 parents.

Roberson said a central focus is changing the “poverty mindset” of the participants, and it has had alumni enter college and start businesses.

Old School

Roberson said KCU’s sports programs are about much more than just physical conditioning.

Coaches provide quiet discipline and positive feedback that is sometimes lacking at home.

“So, if you come to practice and we tell you, boom, boom, boom, and we see you doing it, we celebrate those moments,” Roberson said. “That child now gets to go home and they start, he or she, starts to see something different.”

Some parents give coaches the OK to talk with school administrators about their kids. Counselors have called Roberson asking him to pick up one of the KCU players.

Poor grades land kids on the bench no matter their status on the team. Coaches expect players to respectfully address adults and teach boys to open doors for women.

Nothing less than 100% is tolerated on the field.

“There’s nothing wrong with old school,” Roberson said. “With old school, respect is everything. Respect is earned.”

What Could Be

Roberson dreams big.

He envisions KCU operating full throttle on a roughly $500,000 budget (about double what it had in 2023). With that level of funding, KCU could run programming year-round and serve 200 students combined in the STEAM camp and after-school tutoring, up from the current maximum of 120.

No matter what it becomes, KCU has already profoundly impacted parents like Amelia Clark and Michelle Ramirez.

Clark’s three sons have played football with KCU and participated in the education programming. KCU was an important outlet for the boys as they struggled emotionally with her divorce and a stroke in 2018, Clark said.

The after-school tutoring has been particularly helpful for her oldest son. He struggled to read on grade level moving into fifth grade.

Clark likes that the programs keep the boys active, away from temptations that could get them in trouble, and off video games. She is still recovering from the stroke, so it’s helpful to have strong boys around to help her.

Clark is confident in her ability to raise her boys.

“But I also believe there’s a certain voice that a man (has) to encourage a young man to grow stronger,” she said. “And so that’s all I really want for each one of my boys — that they can be healthy and hopefully meet some healthy men that want to invest in some children.”

Strong Bonds

Ramirez had two sons play KCU football. An older son was too old to participate.

They are grown now and in their 20s, but when they were playing, Ramirez helped on the administrative side of KCU. Coordinating coaches and fundraising were two duties she assisted with along with other parents.

They did car washes, bake sales, and whatever else they could think of to raise money. She appreciated that Roberson did all he could to keep participation costs affordable for the families.

Both of the Ramirez boys who are KCU alums remain physically active. One wrestles on the side of his full-time job, and the other is studying kinesiology in college.

Beyond keeping the boys in shape, Ramirez said KCU taught them time management and the importance of giving back to their community. She said players also developed unbreakable bonds that remain to this day.

The organizers also pulled in professionals from Wyandotte County who talked about the importance of nutrition, conditioning and other topics. “You reinforce that — make sure you’re stretching, make sure you’re eating healthy, you know, bypass that cheeseburger if you can have a salad,” Ramirez said.

The league was much more than sports, she said.

The adults rallied around families going through tough times. One time parents made sure a family in need had Christmas presents, and another time they helped a father who lost his wife midseason.

“You get invested in people and want to see them (succeed),” Ramirez said.

And when Roberson ponders the impact of KCU, he thinks about the “crocodile, bucket-filling tears” flowing from STEAM campers who don’t want the session to end.

It all comes back to the Robersons’ decision on the name of the organization. The key word is “united.”

“We can’t do it by ourselves,” Roberson said.

“We have to work in conjunction with other community partners to make something of this magnitude work. It’s a citywide, local effort to support our theme, which says, ‘Strengthening our city, one soul, one life, one family at a time.’”

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