It's Time to Talk to Your Kids about Race

You can make a difference by making a donation to Starting With Stories today. Our mission is to encourage, equip, and support families with young children to rethink how they discuss race and diversity. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in the Greater Kansas City area and staffed by volunteers.

Racial division has been created in many cities as a result of redlining neighborhoods, limiting access to loans, and developing racially exclusive shopping districts and suburbs. Many live, work, and play in the white bubble of the suburbs, while in other areas people struggle to achieve home ownership, quality education, and equal opportunity. Starting With Stories believes that many families, especially white families, have difficulty initiating conversations about race with their children. Lack of communication about race perpetuates the status quo of racial inequality.

Studies show that children as young as six months notice racial differences. When parents engage with children about race at an early stage, the result can have the most profound impact. Starting With Stories uses the power of children's literature to guide families in creating conversation, change, and the hope for a stronger, more equitable and inclusive future for all.

The founders of Starting With Stories are former children’s librarians who know books, and know from years of experience what can happen when kids connect with stories. We have designed a program well-grounded in research on the stages of identity development and bias development in young children. We teach parents what their child is developmentally ready to understand, provide selected books to get started, model how to share stories, give guidance on how to talk with your child, and offer ongoing support groups and other activities.

Your donation today will help provide books and resource materials for participating families and fund scholarships for families in need. It will aid in the production of quality media resources to extend the reach of our program, and of our website which is currently under construction. It will help families to notice difference, understand difference, celebrate difference, and make a difference.

Please donate to help us create a better tomorrow. Thank you!