SE: Meet the Chiefs Reporter and K-State Family Feeding KC’s Health-Care Workers

4/3/2020

By: Austin Siegel

They're smiling in the photos.

In the middle of a pandemic, the one that they're going to tell their kids and grandkids about one day, these health-care workers are smiling. Wearing the blue scrubs and everything, they're eating barbecue with smiles on their face. It feels strange, that need to write so much about the smiling.

Maybe it would have been, before this month that felt like a year, and before being able to make a health-care worker smile became something like a miracle.

BJ Kissel is the guy to ask about that.

Again, this feels strange, because a month ago BJ Kissel would have been the guy to ask about things like "What kind of conditioner does Patrick Mahomes use?" or "When the team you work for wins the Super Bowl, how do you get interviews in the postgame locker room?"

Kissel is the Chiefs Reporter and played baseball at K-State. He's been receiving these photos because he and his wife Megan – formerly known as Megan Farr, a K-State volleyball player – found a way to make health-care workers smile in a pandemic.

"Seeing the videos from health-care people wearing the masks and saying, 'Stay at home.' All those videos are so impactful," Kissel said. "To see the barbecue with the same people who are going through that, with a smile on their face and to know that for 10 minutes in their day, they get to sit and eat some great barbecue, that's the most rewarding part."

The story of the Kissel family and Feed it Forward doesn't start with barbecue. It starts with gummy bears.

"I had taken my daughter down the street to the convenience store," Kissel said. "My daughter was deciding if she wanted gummy bears or whether she wanted a sucker. She's two-years-old and we had like a full-on conversation about what she wanted, why she wanted it and the right decision. The lady who works there was laughing through the whole thing."

After Kissel and his daughter, McKenna, left the store – with the sucker – he was buckling her into the car seat when he noticed the woman from behind the counter with a bag of gummy bears.

"She just said, 'Hey, I wanted her to have these if that's OK with you,' and she handed them to my daughter and she was so excited," Kissel said.

This all happened right around the time when COVID-19 went from something that was happening on TV screens around the country to a virus that has become part of daily life for Americans working from home and social distancing from friends and family.

When everything comes to a screeching halt, you see the struggles that other people are dealing with and the sacrifices that people are making in a field that puts them in harm's way. This shines a light on it. I think people just want to help.

BJ Kissel

For the Kissel family, it's what made that small act of kindness so remarkable. It's also what made it so challenging to pay it forward.

"My daughter was talking about it and smiling the whole time, just talking about the gummy bears," Kissel said. "It means a lot because of how things are right now, that somebody just thought about somebody else and making somebody else happy. That's kind of what started it."

Kissel said that he and Megan discussed buying pizza for nurses at their local hospital, but that it raised a few questions. Namely, how do you even get food into a hospital right now?

After reaching out to a few of his followers on social media, Kissel found some answers. He also received the first donation from a Chiefs fan who wanted to contribute to the cause.

Had a small idea...that has since gotten bigger.

My wife & I are catering lunch from @jackstackbbq for nurses at a local hospital tomorrow (Friday).

If others want to help do the same, maybe we try to cover as many hospitals as we can?

If interested ???? pic.twitter.com/vUA4YeEdNC
— BJ Kissel (@bkissel7) March 19, 2020

An update on #FeedItForward, which has surpassed $10,000.

We were able to feed more than 150 local nurses today w/ @jackstackbbq & more deliveries are scheduled for Monday.

We have combined efforts w/ a local business owner & have a “Go Fund Me” set up.https://t.co/vUG1oi99sR pic.twitter.com/tGKdTMyfbU
— BJ Kissel (@bkissel7) March 21, 2020

That's when the Kissel family decided to go with barbecue – not only a little easier to package for hospital staff, but a food that represents Kansas City all over the world.

"If somebody is visiting you from out of town, and you're from Kansas City and they're coming in for a weekend, one of the places you're going is one of the famous barbecue places," Kissel said. "That idea of, let's take care of one of these places that's taken care of us any time we've had a friend come into town…I think there's that pride you have in this being a barbecue town."

A longtime friend of the Kissel family is a general manager with Jack Stack Barbecue, one of the many local restaurants that has struggled with the impact of COVID-19 this spring.

After he confirmed that Jack Stack had the manpower to put together lunch for a few nurses, Kissel dropped a note on his personal Twitter account.

"I was thinking we would maybe get $300 or $400 dollars for some barbecue catering and be done with it," Kissel said. "It just kept growing and kept growing and kept growing."

Kissel shared his Venmo account with those interested in donating and contributions began to flood in. He shared the idea around lunchtime. By dinner, he was up to $4,000. Before Kissel went to bed on Thursday night, donations had hit $6,000.

"It was kind of addictive for a while because you get push notifications from Venmo," Kissel said. "We had one guy who gave $800. My wife saw one donation that went in for like $2.95 and it said, 'I'm a poor college student, but I love this idea. This is all I have in my Venmo.' That meant as much as somebody giving like $50 to $60, because it's whatever means you have."

As donations continued to pour in, reaching $10,000 before the weekend, Kissel made a few important decisions about what was quickly becoming a campaign.

He teamed up with Trey McDonald, who had a similar idea and set up a GoFundMe.com campaign as they received more and more contributions.

They also came up with a name: Feed it Forward.

MUST WATCH. Love the idea and impact that @megkiss1 @bkissel7 and @therealtbank had on the community today in a trying time. #WeSeeYouKSHB pic.twitter.com/oBT1junb0a
— Nick Jacobs (@Jacobs71) March 21, 2020

#FeedItForward pic.twitter.com/Ue1IlsptoG
— BJ Kissel (@bkissel7) March 24, 2020

"I was trying to pay it forward with the nice thing that the lady did down the street," Kissel said. "I went to talk to her before I did the first TV interview."

Since the woman had given away the gummy bears to his daughter, Kissel said he wanted to make sure she was OK with him sharing the story of her act of kindness and the campaign that she had inspired.

"I come to find out, she's a retired nurse," Kissel said. "She was over the moon with excitement that just something as simple as making my daughter happy led to this."

The Feed it Forward mission has continued to grow across the nation, with campaigns beginning in Denver, Orlando and Delaware.

This is amazing.

If you’re in the Denver area ????https://t.co/7VkKjTZMlB #denverfeeditforward https://t.co/ERaLRr8SCS
— BJ Kissel (@bkissel7) March 22, 2020

Kissel, on the other hand, is Kansas born and raised.

After beginning his career at Central Missouri, he transferred to K-State as a sophomore, where he met Megan, a Manhattan native and volleyball star at K-State.

Kissel is quick to point out the different roles he and his wife had with the Wildcats.

"She was really good. She was all-conference and a team captain," he said. "I was on the baseball team, but I was a relief pitcher. I was just happy I got a uniform and everything."

As student-athletes, BJ and Megan took part in campus philanthropic events such as Cats for Cans, the K-State Student-Athlete Advisory Committee's annual food drive.

I think it's a bunch of people who look out for each other. It's kind of uncomfortable, because I feel like I had a good idea, but it's really the Kansas City community that did this.

BJ Kissel

"We've always tried to help in any way we can. My mom and dad did a lot of this stuff. My dad passed when I was in college, but this is something that he would have done," Kissel said. "I can remember he would buy a lot of toys to donate at Christmas when I was growing up. Sometimes, he would do that without me or my mom knowing."

Growing up in Overland Park, Kissel and his family had Kansas City Chiefs season tickets, and Kissel grew up heading to games at Arrowhead Stadium, section 338. After his baseball career at K-State ended, Kissel wrote for the Chiefs community on SB Nation, Arrowhead Pride, before he was approached by Bleacher Report about covering the NFL as a national columnist.

When he joined the team as Chiefs Reporter, Kissel became the written voice of the Kansas City Chiefs for many fans, with almost 90,000 followers on Twitter.

Kissel has dutifully covered the offseason for a team that – and this can't be stressed enough – won the Super Bowl two months ago, but Feed it Forward has been a more personal mission.

#feeditforward placed more than 1,000 @jackstackbbq orders today to local hospitals w/ donations from the community.

There are a lot of great things being done to support those who could use it right now.

If you can, find one & support it.

This is ours: https://t.co/vUG1oi99sR pic.twitter.com/Xe75sRlIfH
— BJ Kissel (@bkissel7) March 26, 2020

During a local TV interview, BJ and Megan spoke about their connection to the pandemic.

"I have friends that are nurses and I've seen some of their posts on social media," Megan said in an interview with Kansas City's 41 Action News. "It's crazy what they're dealing with and how much they're helping people."

The broadcast didn't even mention the Chiefs or the Kissel's recent business trip to Miami earlier this year.

As of Friday morning, the GoFundMe.com page for Feed it Forward has raised over $41,000.

Jack Stack Barbecue is able to feed about 125 people for every $1,000 and has pledged to donate 200 additional meals for every 1,000 people fed. This brings the number of health-care workers fed through the campaign to well over 5,000.

"I think it's a bunch of people who look out for each other," Kissel said. "It's kind of uncomfortable, because I feel like I had a good idea, but it's really the Kansas City community that did this."

By the end of tonight, @jackstackbbq will have delivered more than 2,500 individually-boxed meals to nurses, docs & hospital staffs at more than a dozen KC metro hospitals from YOUR donations.

And we still have more than 1,500 meals to deliver.

Thank you, ????. #FeedItForward pic.twitter.com/h2jS9YTBAA
— BJ Kissel (@bkissel7) March 28, 2020

BJ and Megan have done their best to explain to two-year-old McKenna and her brother, five-year-old Carter, the events of the last month and what their family has done to try and help.

After all, the story of Feed it Forward will always begin with gummy bears.

"When I was really busy early on, my wife just explained to our kids that daddy was helping some nurses and doctors that were trying to keep people safe," Kissel said. "We didn't expect it to get to this point, but to see it pop up in other places…I haven't left my house for any of this."

You can contribute to the campaign with a donation on the Feed it Forward GoFundMe page.

"When everything comes to a screeching halt, you see the struggles that other people are dealing with and the sacrifices that people are making in a field that puts them in harm's way. This shines a light on it," Kissel said. "I think people just want to help."