KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Thousands of Kansas City Current fans take the shuttle to CPKC Stadium for every home game. Now, there’s an extra option for them: a trolley.

“Oh, beautiful,” Carol Lopez exclaimed the first time she saw the Teal Town Trolley. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

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Lopez was one of the first fans to ride the trolley.

She came alone, but wasn’t alone for long. Lopez easily made friends with others who were in line with her.

“It’s fun and exciting,” Lopez said.

Kansas City Current fans get new ride to games with Teal Town Trolley

She says the shuttle allows things like making new friends to happen.

Amanda White was there, too. White was first in line.

“Any way to get to the stadium is awesome, but the fact that we’re riding the KC Current Teal Town Trolley — it’s new and exciting,” White said.

They were joined on the ride by KC Current owners Angie and Chris Long.

“We’re really creating the model for multimodal transportation that others are going to replicate,” Chris said.

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An unconventional ride in some ways, with trivia, entertainment, and nostalgia.

“Trolleys were popular for so long in Kansas City, and they’re back,” Chris Long said.

Traveling through time while enjoying the perks of technology.

“Air conditioning on a day like this is very much appreciated,” said KC Current fan Ash Sahni.

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The trolleys join school buses as options to get to the stadium. Once the streetcar connects CPKC to downtown, the buses could be eliminated, according to Angie Long.

“We need to figure that out,” she said. “But I do think there’s a lot of hope that the streetcar itself will provide the same transportation service that the shuttles have done without having to make an extra stop.”

But the trolleys are here to stay.

“The trolleys will be a forever thing,” Angie Long said. “That’s why we wanted to roll them out.”

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Reaching for history while thinking about the future.

“I’m dreaming, scheming, planning, and hoping to be able to get here by boat,” Angie Long said. “We need more infrastructure along the Missouri River, because even if you could stop at our stadium and get out with the dock, where are all the other docks where you can load a boat? Where will all the future water taxis come from? It’s a long-term project, but I think it makes so much sense.”

KC Current Maeve Sahni fan praised the owners, saying they’ve always worked on making the fan experience better and more fun.

LAWRENCE, Kan. — The Lawrence community can gather to celebrate Juneteenth on Saturday by attending a stage play by a local playwright who is telling the story of her parent’s migration from Mississippi to Kansas in search of better opportunities.

Rita Rials’ “Panther Burn: From the Fields of Struggle to the Road of Hope” will take the stage at the Lied Center of Kansas in Lawrence this Saturday.

Her parents were sharecroppers in Panther Burn, Mississippi, and moved to Kansas in the early 1960s in search of better opportunities.

“While we think about Juneteenth and it being recognized as the freedom day, this is just one example of how that struggle for freedom and for equal rights was still continuing and is still continuing,” Nicole Rials, Rita’s sister, said.

Rita and Nicole were two of 13 children in the Rials family. They grew up in North Lawrence.

“In our eyes, we lacked for nothing, but we didn’t know what their (parents’) struggle was, we didn’t know what it took for them to provide us with everything that they did,” Rita Rials said.

Nicole Rials said the play will help “open up our eyes to this experience and how it was similar for many Black families around that time.”

“The struggles during this time as it related to sharecropping was that this was post-slavery time, but in a lot of ways it was another form of slavery,” Nicole Rials said.

While their mother will be in the crowd on Saturday, their father passed away in 2000. Nicole Rials said she thinks their dad would be “incredibly proud.”

“Our parents were real supporters of education, of giving back to your community,” she added.

Nicole helped Rita with the production of the stage play. It’s their seventh time presenting at the Lied Center.

“All of our products are original, centered around culturally relevant, diverse, social justice-themed opportunities to spread important messages,” Nicole Rials said.

The play is written and directed by Rita Rials. In addition to the Lied Center, Life Restoration Ministries — which both Rita and Nicole help lead — will present the play at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. You can learn more here.

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