Autumn Garrett
Editorial Assistant

Striving to prepare Kansas City’s youth for the “challenges of education, employment and self-sufficiency in an ever-changing world,” the Della Lamb Youth COMBAT Program creates a safe and warm environment for children and teenagers to learn and hang out.

COMBAT is the Community Backed Anti-Crime Tax, it funds programs that “combat” substance abuse and drug-related crime in Jackson County and works upon three pillars – prevention, treatment, and criminal justice.

From helping individuals get treatment to providing the resources to pursue and prosecute dealers, COMBAT helps individuals through reducing drug use and crime in communities.

According to the Jackson County COMBAT website, jacksoncountycombat.com, “The Della Lamb Youth Services program has a varied schedule of activities integrating academic and recreational opportunities. These initiatives allow for social play and peer interaction with caring adults. Della Lamb Youth Services has a reputation for excellence, always putting the emotional well-being of our youth members at the forefront.”

The Della Lamb Youth Combat Program helps children from ages 5 all the way through high school to push themselves in society and become part of the community and neighborhood.

“Hopefully we keep kids off drugs and any other kind of substance abuse,” said Anthony Woods, Programs Director at Della Lamb. “We’re just trying to make better citizens out of kids in the community and keep our kids out of fights. We also work with the schools to see which kids have been coming to school or missing school.”

The program offers a variety of events for the children including guest speakers, field trips, lesson plans on bullying, arts and crafts, and even a community garden.

Della Lamb volunteers and staff work to create a better environment and community for their youth clients. Even when the COVID-19 virus shut or slowed several programs and events, Della Lamb’s programs adapted and continued their mission in the surrounding community.

“Right now the numbers [of kids] are just now starting to come back up due to COVID,” Woods said. “While the pandemic was in its full effect, we were taking lunches, actually, door to door. So we were taking lunch boxes with three meals in it for the day to 25 to 30 kids just in the neighborhood.”

The Della Lamb program provides children and young adults in the community with any help they could need, even the ones that just need something to belong to. The program pushes every child involved to contribute to society and be the best that they can be.

The after school program has meetings at 406 Woodland Ave. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Della Lamb programs are open to the public, interested volunteers or participants can find even more details and a complete list of programs on the Della Lamb website – dellalamb.org. The Della Lamb Program opens its doors to everyone willing to make something better for the community.

The Della Lamb Services are open at 8:30 a.m to 5 p.m from Monday to Thursday, and open at 9 a.m on Friday. More info can be found at https://www.dellalamb.org/ or by calling 816-842-8040.