This Week in Kansas City: flying squirrels that glow under a flashlight, a house sold on its distance to Joe's, and 120 volunteers at one front door

Welcome back to This Week in KC, The Stare’s weekly recap of the stuff that actually makes this a city worth living in.

Each section carries a counter: how many stories fell into that corner of local life this week, across the KC newsrooms we read. The bar shows how it stacks against the others. It’s not a ranking by volume. It’s a ranking by new to you.

Saturday was Rebuilding Day, the biggest day of the year for Rebuilding Together Kansas City, and hundreds of volunteers spread out across 23 homes in Clay, Platte, and Jackson counties to build ramps, haul debris, and make repairs for low-income and disabled homeowners, per KCTV5. At one house the crew was mothers and their high-school sons, working through the Young Men’s Service League. YMSL leader Kalista Engelman counted 120 volunteers at that single address, about half of them teenage boys and half their moms, from Shawnee Mission East, Rockhurst, and Pembroke. One of the boys, who had been there since about 8:15 that morning, gave the plainest account of the day anybody could: “It means a lot because, I mean, these people probably can’t do it. So we all do it and come in a big group so we can get it done quickly.” The homeowner was out there with them, Engelman said, deciding what stayed and what went in the dumpster. “The boys love it. They get to experience how precious it is to help people.”

Over in Kansas City, Kansas, where this column has followed the August storm cleanup since it began, a tree that had sat on a house for more than a month finally came off. Lindora Lee had been calling for help since the storm and getting nowhere, she told KSHB 41 on September 16. Two days later KSHB reporter Rachel Henderson happened to interview Sonja Degerstrom of Christ in Action, a volunteer disaster crew that travels the country and is one of several groups the Unified Government called in, and made the introduction. The crew came Monday and took the tree down at no cost, a limb at a time so as not to do more damage to the house. Degerstrom calls that method “eating away the elephant.” Lee says the tree was the thing standing between her and everything else: once it is off, the roof can be reframed and an electrician can put the meter back on the house. “It just makes me feel like there’s still good people out here that wants to help.” If you are in KCK and still waiting, KSHB printed two numbers: Christ in Action at 571-358-9242, and the UG and state’s long-term recovery line at 785-207-1558. (KSHB notes this story was converted from broadcast with the assistance of AI and verified by its editorial team.)

In Shawnee, Seven Stories Bookstore turned itself into a clothing rack for a day on Saturday so NAMI Northeast Kansas could run Closet for a Cause, its second year there, per KSHB 41. The goal was $500 for free mental-health education and support groups, and the racks were full of donated clothes, some with the tags still on. Chapter secretary Jillian Harris made the case for doing it in a bookstore with a price tag on everything: a heavy topic sitting next to an ordinary Saturday errand, she said, “just normalizes it which is exactly what it should be.” (Also AI-assisted, per KSHB.) September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month; the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline takes calls and texts.

On Tuesday, two-time All-Pro center Creed Humphrey spent his afternoon outside Arrowhead serving pizza to service members and families from Whiteman Air Force Base, with Little Caesars’ Love Kitchen, per KSHB 41 (AI-assisted). The best line came from Tech Sgt. D’Anne Kennedy of the 442nd Fighter Wing, the A-10 Warthog outfit, about her own chief master sergeant, a Kansas City native: “He’s almost getting to just be a guy and get to experience it, getting to be a Chiefs fan.”

Also Saturday, Bike MS: Kansas City rolled out of Union Station for the 43rd year, on four routes from 20 to 100 miles, some as far as Wolf Creek, per KSHB 41 and KCTV5. Rider Carolyn Fischer: “I often hear that they have MS, but MS doesn’t have them.”

Johnson County has flying squirrels, and now two separate studies can say where. A Kansas State University team led by professor Adam Ahlers, with graduate student Lydia Robbins, ran 1,113 cameras at 300 sites across eastern Kansas over three years, on a Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks grant, and found southern flying squirrels at Heritage Park, at James Place Park in Overland Park, in Edwardsville, and in Kansas City, Kansas. Separately, Johnson County Community College instructor Stephanie Ferrero put trail cameras and ultrasonic microphones in Cedar Niles Park and Shawnee Mission Park and picked up one suspected photo and three recordings between them. The animals weigh two or three ounces, glide on a cape of skin stretched from wrist to ankle, chirp partly above what human ears can hear, and, for reasons nobody has worked out, glow red under a UV flashlight. They had not been studied in Kansas in more than forty years, though the state has listed them as a species in need of conservation since 1987. Robbins’s summary: “They are widespread in Eastern Kansas but have low abundances. So, overall, they are fairly rare.” This one ran as the parks district’s own sponsored column in the Johnson County Post, so read it as JCPRD telling you about its parks, which in this case is a pleasure.

Lenexa is building the metro’s first “American Ninja Warrior”-style public obstacle course, and the city council just voted 7-0 to raise the budget for the Central Green Playground at Lenexa City Center from $1.4 million to $1.7 million, per the Johnson County Post. The extra $300,000 comes from the City Center TIF district; the rest is the city’s 3/8-cent parks sales tax, a parks impact fee, and a donation from AdventHealth, whose campus is next door. Plans call for 14 obstacles, an inclusive playground, a year-round restroom, and a tower almost 23 feet tall, opening in 2027. Councilmember Craig Denny has already chosen his role: “I’m not going to be one of these senior citizens that thinks he’s a ninja. To me, it just looks like a good way to get hurt, but I’m going to stand out there and watch my grandkids play on it.” Councilmember Bill Nicks: “When you do open it, especially the ninja course, the world is going to show up.”

Wednesday, the American Discovery 250 Relay came through Black Hoof Park in Lenexa with three batons engraved “life,” “liberty,” and “the pursuit of happiness,” per KCTV5. It is 6,800 miles by foot, bike, and anything else without a motor, from the coast north of San Francisco on July 1 to the Atlantic by Thanksgiving. Mayor Julie Sayers carried a baton on toward Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop in Olathe; it was due through Leawood Thursday.

In Riverside, Morton Amphitheater is finishing its first season, and KSHB 41 reports more than 350,000 visitors and 43 shows averaging more than 10,000 people each. Multiply those out and the season clears 430,000, so the 350,000 in the headline is the cautious figure. Mayor Kathy Rose says hotels and restaurants, Parkville’s included, have seen “a great uptick.” Lisa Bergrud of The Sorted Brick has seen a couple of concertgoers stop for dinner and would like more reasons for them to stay: “maybe more eating places, more choices for that.”

If you have seen a tarantula on a Kansas road lately, the state wants you to let it cross. The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks calls them “gentle giants”: this time of year the adult males leave their burrows to look for mates, some females live more than 20 years, and the advice is don’t touch, don’t move, give it time, per a KWCH story carried by KCTV5. In fairness to Johnson County, they are mostly south of Wichita and west of Salina.

Two for tomorrow. Bourbon in the Park returns to English Landing Park in Parkville from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday: more than 45 Missouri-made bourbon samples, food from Chef Andrew Longres of Acre, a whiskey-bottle ring toss, tickets around $90, with part of the proceeds going to the Veterans Community Project, per The Pitch. The same evening, Mission turns 75 with a street party at Johnson Drive and Woodson from 5 to 9 p.m.: The Suburbans playing the 1950s to now, food trucks, beer from Mission’s breweries, and a “Mission Through the Decades” costume contest at 5:45. That one is the city’s own announcement, placed as sponsored content in the Johnson County Post.

Mission had a good week. On the back side of the Mission Mart building at 5330 Martway St., 913 Mercantile is open with nearly 80 small businesses sharing 12,000 square feet, per FOX4. The rule that separates it from an antique mall is that everything is new, handmade or picked out by the vendor: apparel, jewelry, soap, kitchenware, gourmet food, and things for your dog. Founders Tyler and Lindsey Bonine run a couple of the booths themselves. “There’s no other time that’s more important to shop local than right now,” Tyler Bonine said. The official grand opening is Saturday, October 17, at 10 a.m.

At 75th and Quivira in Shawnee, shelves are being stocked at El Mercado Fresco (Fresh Market of Shawnee), the grocery anchoring the rebuilt Westbrooke Green center, which developer PJ Guastello says is aiming for early October, per KSHB 41. The site sat mostly empty for more than a decade. Shawnee first approved its redevelopment in 2017, with a community improvement district and tax increment financing attached, and approved a new agreement in 2024 when Guastello took over a project that had gone into default. “It’s been a long time coming,” he said. Plans include a deli, a bakery, and fresh produce, with a liquor store, a golf simulator, a nail salon, and restaurants to follow. The story started with a neighbor next door who asked KSHB in 2024 whether anything was ever going to happen there. It is.

In south Kansas City’s Red Bridge neighborhood, Caravel Autism Health opened its fourth metro clinic at the end of August, with room for about 30 children, per KCTV5. Clinic leadership says the added locations have eliminated its wait times. Behavior analyst Allison Wyatt: “Just because they have an autism diagnosis doesn’t mean that they can’t go out and be a part of their community, or make friends, or reach their dreams and achievements.”

Briefly: EBISU, the Japanese home-goods chain with a 2018 flagship in Osaka, has filed plans for its first metro store at 9148 Metcalf Ave. in Overland Park’s Regency Plaza, in the space the Metcalf Antique Mall left when it moved next door, per the Johnson County Post. Mokas Coffee & Eatery, which started in Salina twenty years ago, holds its grand opening September 30 at 11814 S. Fellows St. in Olathe; franchisee Christian Coleman plans five more around the metro, per the Post. Toys “R” Us is back for the holidays at Legends Outlets in KCK, inside the Macy’s stores at Oak Park and Town Center Plaza, and at Zona Rosa, per KCTV5. That is four; the story’s own web address still says three.

A five-bedroom house in Roeland Park’s Fairway Manor went on the market at $445,000, and realtors Jeremy and Janie Snider put its best feature on the sign: close to Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que. “When you sell a home there’s more to it than the number of rooms and the square feet,” Jeremy Snider told KCTV5. Joe’s saw it and posted that the new owners’ first meal is on the house, per FOX4. Manager Lane Doughty: “So it’s a selling point in the area for our realtors? We love it.” The realtor told KCTV5 the house went under contract quickly. How close is it? That depends who you ask. FOX4 says 0.7 miles, a four-minute drive or a 14-minute walk. KCTV5 says a three-minute drive or a 12-minute walk. Either way, you can smell it.

The less cheerful barbecue story is the price of beef. Marisha Brown-Smith of Rosedale Bar-B-Q, in KCK since her grandfather opened it in 1934, told KCTV5 her beef costs are up “probably, I would say, 60%, 70% over the last few months.” Mike Peterson, assistant general manager at Arthur Bryant’s, put it differently: some cuts up about a dollar a pound over the past year. Both are eating the difference instead of raising menu prices, for now. Her grandfather opened during meat rationing, and the bar had a jingle for it: “lamb, sheep or mutton. If you don’t want that, you don’t get nothing.” She would like to keep beef on the menu: “We don’t want the money going up in smoke, but we’d rather be smoking the beef than the money and some of the product loss.” Peterson on burnt ends, which Bryant’s says it had a hand in inventing: “That will be on our menu forever.”

La Fetta Delicatessen, the focaccia sandwich shop at 143rd and Metcalf, is opening a second location at Corinth Square, 3945 W. 83rd St., aiming for mid-October, per The Pitch. Owner Adam Bracco got the idea on a family vacation in Montana, where a shop called Tagliare made him what he calls “a life-changing sandwich.” He left the corporate grind, talked Tagliare’s owner into a partnership, and opened here about a year ago. The best seller is the Beach Boy, a club with spicy garlic aioli; the pasta salad is his wife’s family’s recipe. Monday through Saturday, 11 to 8.

From Brock Wilbur’s KC Sipps in The Pitch: Provis Coffee in North Kansas City soft-opens today and officially opens tomorrow, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day, with no upcharge for alternative milk. Guy’s on Main, on the streetcar line across from Gallup Map, is open as a bodega with a four-seat bar. Clementine’s in Prairie Village has an Edgar Allan Poe menu; the Midnight Dreary is dark chocolate and raspberry jam. Saturday at 8 a.m., the Ruby Jean’s Foundation and the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council are cleaning up an illegal dump site at 39th and Wabash; wear heavy gloves and hard-soled shoes and meet in the Aldi lot. Then Café Corazón in the Crossroads throws a Hispanic Heritage Month brunch party from 11 to 2. On the other side of the ledger, Anton’s Taproom downtown, open since 2012, is closing by the end of this week, the column reports, citing KCTV5.

Also coming, per the Johnson County Post’s Lucie Krisman: a third Johnson County Chicken Salad Chick at Olathe Pointe, aiming for January or February, run by sisters Jo Anne Williams and Cindy Sulzman (Post); the metro’s first Golden Chick, the Texas fried-chicken chain founded in 1967, in the old Hardee’s at 815 S. Parker St. in Olathe in early 2027 (Post); and a first Shawnee 7 Brew in the old KFC at 63rd and Quivira (Post).

Xavier Echeverria came to the United States from Ecuador in 1994, finished high school in Lawrence, and is now director of operations at Q39, where he helped open two restaurants in under six months and oversees roughly 500 employees, per KSHB 41 (AI-assisted). He dates his work ethic to age eight: “The passion of my parents teaching me dedication, hard work and to do the right thing. Do the right thing when nobody’s watching.” Executive chef Patrick Peluso described what that looks like on a shift: “He’ll walk into the restaurant, and he’s giving high fives to the servers; he’ll walk to the kitchen, he’s giving high fives to our cooks and our chefs.”

In mid-90s heat Saturday, Prairie Village’s Hispanic Heritage Celebration at Harmon Park drew what councilmember Ron Nelson called a bigger crowd than either of the past two years, per the Johnson County Post. Ballet Folklorico’s Itsï Asuli group danced the regional styles of Veracruz, Baja California, and Jalisco. Dancer Kimberly Garibay: “It’s very nice to be able to show everyone a little piece of Mexico.” One of her 11-year-old castmates put the purpose better than a program note would: “What we do is show other kids what Mexican culture is.” There was elote popcorn from Casa Ama, and Magpie Creative Reuse had kids making milagro hearts out of foil and yarn.

Kansas City FilmFest International turned 30 and handed out its awards Saturday at AMC Ward Parkway, per KCTV5. Best narrative feature went to The King of Black Goo (Andrew Zappin), best documentary to Burn Scar (Hillary Bachelder), the Heartland Filmmaker Award to Sharon Liese’s Seized, the Fred Andrews Emerging Filmmaker Award to Valerie Tiscareno’s Sueños, and the high-school short prize to Pedal Faster by Ira Good. Head programmer Melanie Addington on why the festival exists: “We get to bring these filmmakers and their work into a theater, put them in front of an audience, and create connections that simply don’t happen when we experience films alone.”

Blue Valley has named its nominees for the state’s Kansas Horizon Award, which honors teachers for their first year in the classroom: kindergarten teacher Hadley Schafer of Leawood Elementary and math teacher Kate Gabel of Blue Valley Northwest. Gabel’s teaching philosophy fits in two sentences, and they are good ones: “I do not need every student to leave my classroom loving math. I want them to leave knowing they are capable of doing it.” That comes from the district’s own sponsored “School Buzz” column in the Johnson County Post.

Lawrence’s CAT F!GHT, a riot-grrrl punk band four KU students started on Halloween 2022 to play a basement show, put out its self-titled five-song EP this summer and talked it over with The Pitch. Guitarist Maura Dayton has the band’s editorial policy: “If we write something longer than two and a half minutes, we think it’s too long. We’re just blunt.” They play the Replay Lounge tonight and open for Sweeping Promises at White Schoolhouse on Tuesday.

Also tonight, until 10 p.m.: downtown Parkville has dressed itself up for Dolly Parton Day as this month’s Final Friday, per FOX4. Dolly cookies at Wild Flour Baking Co., “9-5” strawberry lemonade at Rochester Brewing, $10 rosé at Parkville Wine House, and at Typo’s Bookstore, 10 percent off for anyone who brings a book to donate, in the spirit of her Imagination Library.

Last, from FOX4’s Pay It Forward: trainer Savannah Sullivan works to fix the behavior problems that keep shelter dogs from getting adopted. Danita Buckingham, who nominated her, says Sullivan turned her dog Barron from “a precarious puppy to the well-behaved gentlemen that he is today.” Sullivan thought she was meeting Buckingham at Pete & Mac’s about a problem with Barron. The problem was that FOX4 was there with a surprise.

A squirrel that glows, a house sold by the smell of burnt ends, and a hundred and twenty moms and sons at one front door. See you next week.

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This Week in KC is assembled from coverage across the Kansas City newsrooms The Stare reads daily; each item is credited to the outlet that reported it. Corrections: corrections@kcstare.com. Know something good happening in KC? tips.