Paxton Burns was 6 when he asked his mom if they could put up a curbside food box, similar to a Little Free Library, outside the family’s Riverside home in Wichita. He wanted to make sure his neighbors and others who passed by had easy access to food, no questions asked.

Nearly four years later, more than 75 of the red Paxton’s Blessing Boxes can be found outside homes and schools in Sedgwick County, in other parts of Kansas and in five other states.

“And we have a big, long list of people waiting for boxes,” said Paxton’s mom, Maggie Ballard.

The mini food pantry boxes are red, Paxton said in a previous interview when he and his work were honored during the Difference Makers of Wichita awards program earlier this year, “because we like red.”

His efforts are now getting a second local award.

This Saturday, HumanKind Ministries is recognizing Paxton’s Blessing Box, along with ICT Food Rescue and the Wichita Area Builders Association’s Builders Care nonprofit — all of which help others less fortunate — with its 69th annual Humanitarian Awards.

HumanKind (formerly InterFaith) Ministries is holding a virtual ceremony, along with a fundraiser, Saturday, Aug. 22, to celebrate the award winners and its 135th anniversary. Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid will be the event’s special guest speaker.

Initially, Ballard thought the folks who would visit the box to take a few nonperishable items would be those who were homeless. She soon realized it was those who live paycheck to paycheck, the ones society calls the working poor. The boxes are usually stocked with items like ramen noodles, packaged cracker snacks, macaroni and cheese, bottled water and prepackaged snack items like granola bars and crackers.

Local layoffs and kids being out of school since March, when the COVID-19 shutdown occurred, have increased people’s usage of the boxes. Ballard said. More than 50 of the boxes are in Sedgwick County and eight are near area schools. Some are in what’s known as food deserts, like Delano and Planeview, which lack neighborhood grocery stores.

Burns said recently she’s noticed a little girl visiting the original Paxton’s Blessing Box outside their home daily. It brings home the fact that people are in need, she said.

“You just never know what people may be going through,” Ballard said.

For the first two years after starting Paxton’s Blessing Box in fall 2016, Ballard and Paxton worked out of their home’s basement where they created the kits for assembling the boxes and stored the food donated to their cause. After using a local church for pantry space for a while, in July they moved the entire Paxton’s Blessing Box nonprofit operation to a climate-controlled warehouse space north of Old Town.

“It’s been a huge blessing,” Ballard said, of the new space. She’s secured grants to pay the rent so that cash donations can continue to go for making the blessing box kits and buying food.

Recently, the pantry shelves are being cleared as more people make use of Paxton’s Blessing Boxes, each of which measures 20-by-24-by-15 inches. Normally, they run quarterly food drives annually to stock the pantry shelves, but they’ve only held one so far, on July 25. They got $3,000 in cash donations which will help restock the shelves in that drive, Ballard said. Another food drive, this one in conjunction with the local Nissan car dealership, is planned for Sept. 19.

The concept of Paxton’s Blessing Boxes has spread across Kansas and the U.S. thanks to friends and family spreading the word. The effort got a big boost this year when Ballard posted the project on the national Facebook page of her Alpha Delta Pi sorority and Paxton’s work was featured in the sorority’s national magazine.

While Ballard has to be “super hands-on because Paxton’s 10,” she said, “it’s still his deal.” And he often comments about understanding the benefits of his namesake blessing boxes.

“I think it’s pretty cool that we can help people who sometimes don’t have the stuff that we have,” he has said. “It feels good when people are taking stuff from the boxes because we know it’s being used.”

She also acknowledges that the effort has become a deal for others, too — from those who donate food and cash to those who offer to put up and keep the boxes stocked.

More about Paxton’s Blessing Box can be found at paxtonsblessingbox.com

Award winners

ICT Food Rescue, a local effort to redistribute what would have been food waste from restaurants and other organizations, and the Wichita Area Builders Association’s Builders Care nonprofit arm, which works on building projects for area nonprofits, are also being recognized during the Aug. 22 HumanKind Ministries virtual event.

Stephanie Merritt, who founded ICT Food Rescue in 2016, said her first food rescue in Wichita happened when she spotted a Reverie Coffee Roasters employee heading to the trash bins with the excess food the coffeehouse was throwing away. She worked with owner Andrew Gough to set up what’s known as a food rescue, and the coffeehouse continues to be a partner in the effort.

More than 20 restaurants, organizations and venues work with Merritt and her volunteers to donate food surplus.

“It took one person who was willing to take that risk and donate,” Merritt said. Currently, the nonprofit has more than 40 rescues a week scheduled.

Most people assume restaurants or other food services have to throw away food surplus, so she helps educate them that the 1999 Good Samaritan Food Donation Act allows for such rescue efforts.

More than 20 area nonprofit organizations, including Ronald McDonald House and programs for youth and adults, get the food surplus. All of the rescues and donations are coordinated through the Food Rescue US app. ICT Food Rescue was the first organization to bring the Food Rescue US program to the Midwest, its website says. Find more about the organization at ictfoodrescue.com.

The Wichita Area Builders Association created its nonprofit Builders Care program in 2009. At least 70% of WABA’s membership has contributed services, labor and materials at some point when nonprofit organizations have put in building project requests, according to Wess Gaylon, WABA’s president and CEO. WABA’s 900 or so individual members represent about 635 companies in a seven-county area, he said.

Past projects have included remodeling the intake center at the Wichita Children’s Home and building a home for a disabled veteran and his family through Homes for Our Troops, according to Gaylon and Steve Hund, president of All Seasons Construction and the chair of WABA’s board of directors.

A current project underway involves building a dedicated space for the cottage industry efforts of women involved in the Raise My Head Foundation, which works with women in Kansas breaking from sex trafficking, Hund said.

For more information about Builders Care, visit wababuilderscare.org.

Humanitarian Awards event

What: The 69th anniversary of HumanKind (formerly InterFaith) Ministries’ Humanitarian awards. This year’s virtual event and fundraiser will also celebrate HumanKind Ministries’ 135th anniversary. Andy Reid, head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, will be the ceremony’s special guest speaker.

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 22

Cost: $135, which includes dinner from AVI Seabar & Chophouse to each ticket holder’s home, entry into the auction fundraiser and access to the entire evening’s program. Dinner and event tickets must be purchased by Monday, Aug. 17. $50 tickets for access to the event and auction are available through Saturday, Aug. 22.

More information: 316-264-9303 or humankindwichita.org