Kansas

Everyone has a role to play in alleviating our fellow Kansans' despair and daily needs • Kansas Reflector

Published

2 years ago

July 24, 2024

Everyone has a role to play in alleviating our fellow Kansans' despair and daily needs • Kansas Reflector

Poverty. Crime. Anger. Despair. Confusion.

They’re everywhere. The pain is deep and far and wide these days in Kansas and beyond. When I am near downtown Topeka, I shop at a store where there are people who exhibit great needs. I often see homeless people with stolen grocery carts, using them as places to keep their belongings.

A local nonprofit called Let’s Help is opening a location nearby, and I can just see ahead to the people who will seek assistance there. I truly care, however, and my compassion gives me strength in a time when despair and lack threaten to overtake us all.

Last month, I was given a tour of the Lois Curtis campus on Indiana Street in southeast Topeka. They have renovated an old grade school to provide services to people in need, especially those who have a disability. They have a food bank section, a room with durable medical equipment along with other resource rooms. The people who work there are lovely.

That’s just how it is for folks. Poverty affects too many people, but it especially affects those who have an extra struggle, such as a physical or mental disability. It also affects people of color and those who struggle with addictions.

There are people who say that Jesus is the answer for the poverty issue — that churches are the answer, not the government. While my faith is vital to my life and very, very important, I think Jesus would ask us all to lend a helping hand. That includes local nonprofits, homeless shelters, and federal, state and local government.

It definitely takes all of us — everyone — working together to help eradicate poverty.

One of the issues I think a lot about is food insecurity. When we see someone in front of us in the grocery store checkout using a food benefit card, I would say that’s the time to offer a smile and a kind word, or even a prayer. We don’t know that person’s story.

I just completed another gift card drive for the housing specialist at a local mental health nonprofit, and my friends gave $300 in gift cards for vulnerable clients. The housing specialist emailed me and shared her joy that she and also the case managers experience when they drive their clients to the store to use the gift cards to purchase food and other necessities. This made me happy.

My grandpa was a minister for 60 years. I often wonder: What would grandpa do? My grandpa gave to people in need. He and my grandma lived in a huge home in Americus, Georgia, yet they weren’t snobs or prideful. They always helped people.

I want to make a difference like my grandparents did. I have volunteered at Doorstep, a Topeka nonprofit that gives food, clothes and rent and utility assistance. I have also helped provide food for a friend in need. I drop off sandwiches for lunch at her doorstep.

We can all work together to face the poverty we see. We can work together to address the needs creatively and bravely. We will need the courage of people like Barry Feaker, who has been helping folks experiencing homelessness for years. He and LaManda Broyles and their team at the Topeka Rescue Mission truly provide hope and health.

Sgt. Matt Rose at the Topeka Police Department and the officers there truly care about homelessness. Rose has been given a huge job to help deal with complex needs in individuals and he and the officers on his team really reach out to help people in crisis. I have the honor of speaking each year to law enforcement in the Crisis Intervention Team training. It’s very important.

Yes, it’s time to gather our courage and our strength and to work together to address these huge issues in our communities and our state. There isn’t just one easy answer, and we need to congratulate ourselves when we find even part of an answer and when we help even just one individual in need.

Let’s run into the future with hope and heart and embrace the needs with strength.

Rebecca Lyn Phillips is a published author, speaker and mental health advocate. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

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Related Topics:disabilities Featured Homelessness homelessness Crisis mental health poverty Topeka Rescue Mission

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Kansas

RESULTS: NE Kansas high schools to play Friday after Tuesday sub-state wins

Published

4 hours ago

March 4, 2026

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RESULTS: NE Kansas high schools to play Friday after Tuesday sub-state wins

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Below is a look at the results from Tuesday night’s high school basketball sub-state semifinals in Northeast Kansas.

Editor’s Note: This story will be updated with what schools are hosting when that information becomes readily available.

WIBW Scoreboard

BOYS

5A East Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

KC Washington 68, Highland Park 38
Shawnee Heights 49, De Soto 37 (will play Leavenworth Friday)

5A West Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Topeka West 55, Hutchinson 32 (will play Bishop Carroll Friday)
Emporia 61, Great Bend 41 (will play Maize South Friday)
Seaman 73, Valley Center 51 (will play Hays Friday)

3A West Franklin Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Burlington 60, Osage City 35 (will play Baxter Springs Friday)

3A Sabetha Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Hiawatha 73, Oskaloosa 48 (will play Heritage Christian Friday)
Silver Lake 58, Sabetha 39 (will play Perry-Lecompton Friday 7:30 p.m.)

GIRLS

6A West Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Washburn Rural 60, Wichita South 32 (will play Derby)
Topeka High 69, Maize 45 (will play Liberal)
Manhattan 67, Free State 21 (will play Wichita East)

4A East Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Rock Creek 71, Parsons 23 (will play Tonganoxie)
Wamego 54, Labette County 33 (will play Bishop Miege)
Hayden 2, Athison 0 (will play Baldwin)

2A Eskridge/Mission Valley Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Rossville 71, KC Christian 49 (will play Maur Hill-Mount Academy)
Lyndon 61, Jeff. Co. North 31 (will play Valley Heights)
Valley Heights 65, Doniphan West 41 (will play Lyndon)

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Kansas

Doe v. State of Kansas | American Civil Liberties Union

Published

16 hours ago

March 3, 2026

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Doe v. State of Kansas | American Civil Liberties Union

In early 2026, the Kansas state legislature passed SB 244, a law which prohibits transgender people from using public restrooms on government property that align with their gender identity and establishes a private right of action that allows anyone who suspects someone is transgender and in violation of the law to sue that person for “damages” totaling $1,000.

The law also invalidates state-issued driver’s licenses with updated gender markers that reflect the carrier’s gender identity. In February 2026, transgender people across the state received letters from the state Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles informing them that their driver’s licenses “will no longer be valid,” effective immediately. SB 244 also prohibits transgender Kansans – or those born in Kansas – from updating the gender marker on state-issued birth certificates and driver’s licenses in the future.

The same day SB 244 went into effect, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kansas, and Ballard Spahr LLP filed a lawsuit challenging SB 244 in the District Court of Douglas County on behalf of two transgender men who had their driver’s licenses invalidated under the law. The lawsuit charges that SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution’s protections for personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.

“The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police,” said Harper Seldin, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”

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Kansas

Kansas City man sentenced for cocaine trafficking, possession of illegal firearm

Published

1 day ago

March 3, 2026

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Kansas City man sentenced for cocaine trafficking, possession of illegal firearm

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A Kansas City man was sentenced in federal court for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy and possession of an illegal firearm.

According to the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, 22-year-old Antoine R. Gillum was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison without parole.

His sentencing stems from a June 2024 incident in a metro gas station. KCPD investigators contacted Gillum inside and found that he had discarded a 9 mm pistol in an aisle between the merchandise. He also discarded a pill bottle containing multiple illegal substances: cocaine base, oxycodone/acetaminophen and oxycodone.

Officers searched the vehicle Gillum had arrived in and found approximately 32 grams of cocaine base.

On May 6, 2025, Gillum pleaded guilty to one count each of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Jennings. It’s a part of ‘Operation Take Back America,’ a nationwide Department of Justice initiative to eliminate cartels and transnational criminal organizations.

No further information has been released.

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