KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Saturday at 1:30 p.m., there will be a groundbreaking ceremony on the new KD Academy at 2109 Prospect Avenue.
The $3.1 million project is funded in part by the one-eighth cent sales tax passed in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2017 and an ordinance passed by City Hall earlier this year.
Owners Penny Bell-McCant and Myron McCant say the facility will help fill the need for the hundreds of children on their waiting list.
"I talked to my husband, I said, 'Sweetie, we're turning away too many children, what do we do?'" Bell-McCant said.
"We had to go out and look for some greater opportunities," McCant added.
Their current facility, Kiddie Depot, serves about 115 families. With the new 10,000-square-foot expansion at KD Academy, they'll be able to serve more than 420 children.
"We want to teach these children, give them nourishment, educate them, give them love and make these babies grow up to be the best they can possibly be," Bell-McCant said.
"This urban core, this particular area which we're developing, is the last to be developed, and we feel like these parents, these children, this community needs that same opportunity," McCant said. "We could've went
somewhere else and made a lot more money, but it wasn't about the money for us as much as it was creating an opportunity for someone who may not have had the same opportunities that we had when we were coming up."
The McCants said as they looked for opportunities to expand, development was the best opportunity; not only for the current and future families they serve, but the Prospect Corridor community.
About 4,500-square-feet of the new facility will be dedicated to medical services for the neighborhood.
"It's a grand effort from the community. It's going to bring beautification to a blighted community," McCant said. "It is going to create employment opportunities. We've also partnered with a lot of employers. We've created a lot of solutions for those employers."
The McCants said they currently have 23 employees, which they say have made a large impact in serving the children and their families. They expect to bring in 66 new employees with the expansion.
Construction is expected to be complete by August of 2020.
