Ground- Breaking Social Enterprise
Meet Chef Shanita McAfee-Bryant
Award Winning Chef |Executive Director & Founder
Chef Shanita is a Kansas City native and a civic-minded chef eager to transform the lives of community members on the Eastside neighborhoods through food-based solutions: nutrition education, kitchen culinary training and culinary entrepreneurship.
She fell in love with cooking as a teen and went on to receive her professional culinary training at Johnson County Community College. She created and owned a restaurant and competed on The Food Network’s “Cutthroat Kitchen.”
In 2019, Shanita founded The Prospect KC, a social enterprise designed to address systemic inequities, caused by food apartheid, including food insecurity, unemployment and housing instability by providing workforce development, including case management, skill management, financial and nutrition education, childcare and job training.
Shanita is a board member with Harvesters, the Greater KC Food Policy Coalition and Lazarus Ministries KC. She has attended a James Beard Foundation’s Chef Bootcamp for Policy and Change and the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, the first such gathering in more than half a century, at the invitation of U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver.
The Prospect KC
The Prospect KC is a ground-breaking social enterprise founded in 2019 by award-winning professional chef, Kansas City native and community activist Shanita McAfee-Bryant.
Modeled as a high-impact solution to hunger, homelessness, and poverty, the non-profit serves Kansas City’s Eastside, a neighborhood struggling with food apartheid, a racist and oppressive system that creates inequitable food systems.
The Prospect KC’s mission is to create lasting change through programs designed to address food access, nutrition education and culinary job training. The Prospect KC also provides comprehensive support services through a robust network of social service partnerships offering food assistance, housing, childcare, transportation, and job training.
The Prospect KC manages five community-building initiatives to bolster success: Culinary Job Training, Kitchen Confidence, Real Food for Real People, Stir the Pot and Making A Chef.
Housed inside Kansas City’s first public works building abandoned since the 1970s which National Public Radio described as “limestone ruins straight out of Medieval Europe,” The Prospect KC breathes new life into the reinvigorated and repurposed community space at 2000 Vine Street, located within the historic 18th & Vine Jazz District.
Within The Prospect KC is The Spot, a 1,200-square-foot culinary space featuring a café, coffeeshop and fresh grocer section accepting SNAP benefits. Adjacent space includes Kansas City’s first Black-owned brewery, Vine Street Brewing Co., the Warren Harvey Art Gallery, event spaces and workspace for businesses such as BLC Firm and Phronesis.
The Mission
The Prospect KC’s mission is to empower the “Prospects” – defined by Meriam Webster as “someone or something that is likely to succeed.”
The Vision
The Prospect KC serves as an umbrella to support Prospects through food-based solutions: nutrition education, culinary training and culinary entrepreneurship.
Core Values
Generosity
We believe in being open, patient, accepting, respectful, and giving without expectation.
Accountability
We drive impact, work in collaboration, and deliver meaningful outcomes with honesty, fairness, and transparency.
Access
Getting the individual and family access. Socioeconomic state should not determine access to food.
Empower
Safe and affirming environment to foster security, innovation, and growth.
Community
We nurture connections that lead to sustainable and impactful change.
Creating Lasting Change
Our Initiatives
The Prospect KC plans to serve 150 women, 215 youth, 80 unhoused and 150 housed but impoverished students and serve at least a million meals by 2025.
Our Funding/ Partners
Our efforts are designed to support members of disenfranchised communities at or below the federal poverty line in the Kansas City metro area.
We receive generous funding from individual donors, foundations, corporations, and the government. The Prospect KC’s major funders include grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Hall Family Foundation, and the Community Capital Fund.
We also work with a network of social service agencies to provide wraparound services to help our Prospects succeed.
The Ripple Effect
Our Prospects are capable, competent, and eager to overcome. With new abilities and the chance to change their life story, the Prospects become part of the solution — together with The Prospect KC’s community partners and donors.
While a Prospect’s growth is a lifelong transformation, success begins the first day they prepare a meal for the most vulnerable and hungry in our community. Each day on the job builds more confidence, self-reliance and hope for graduates who possess the skills to keep a job.
Become A Supporter
Individual Giving: Join Our Coffee For A Cause Community!
Corporate Giving: Culinary Collaborators Alliance