‘Always in Season’ tee raises funds for neighborhood farmers market targeted by DEI-related cuts
March 6, 2025 | Taylor Wilmore
Kansas City designer Lauren Allen is serving up something fresh — both in style and in message. Her latest T-shirt for the Ivanhoe Farmers Market delivers a bold statement: “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion are always in season.”
Designed with vibrant vegetable illustrations, the shirt celebrates DEI while supporting a vital community resource — and its message comes at a crucial time, she said.
The Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council, which runs the farmers market, recently lost a $165,000 USDA grant because of President Trump’s federal rollbacks on DEI initiatives, threatening the neighborhood group’s plans to expand fresh food access in underserved areas.
Determined to help, Allen teamed up with the market’s marketing team to design the shirt, making the connection between DEI and fresh produce.
“I started thinking, how do we tie the two together? And this just came to me,” she said.
The result: a design that makes both a statement and a financial impact.
Click here to purchase a shirt or here for the related sticker design.
Designer Lauren Allen; photo by Taylor Wilmore, Startland News
A community connection
Allen’s collaboration with the Ivanhoe Farmers Market wasn’t a chance encounter. Her ties to the market stretch back to 2018 when she first started attending. Since then, she has built relationships through her involvement in Kansas City’s cycling community.
“I lead a cycling group called Women-Led Cycling, and we try to connect with local organizations doing good stuff,” Allen said. “A couple of years ago, the market’s marketing team reached out about collaborating on an event. I ended up organizing a bike ride that stopped at the market.”
Her ties deepened last year when the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council faced a controversy over a high-profile personnel dispute with multiple workers, she said.
“That wasn’t even a year ago,” Allen said. “And now this happened, so I reached out again and asked, ‘What can I do?’”
Designing fresh threads
Allen, who now leads a design team at MissionWired, has built a career in branding and digital design with a strong nonprofit focus. While her full-time role keeps her busy, she still takes on freelance projects for causes she cares about, including the Ivanhoe Farmers Market.
She’s also done volunteer work for Missouri Pit Bull Rescue and a cycling kit for Black-led group the Major Taylor Cycling Club.
“This design was special. The market team just said, ‘Maybe something that says diversity, equity, and inclusion with vegetables.’ And I started thinking, how do we make that connection? The phrase ‘always in season’ just came to me.”
Proceeds from the shirts will go to support the Ivanhoe Farmers Market and its mission of increasing fresh food access in the community.
“This is one of those moments where supporting locals is critical,” Allen emphasized. “The farmers market is doing such important work in that neighborhood, and with everything happening right now, we don’t know what’s left. It’s going to boil down to community and local support.”
Featured Business
Taylor Wilmore
Taylor Wilmore, hailing from Lee’s Summit, is a dedicated reporter and a recent graduate of the University of Missouri, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Taylor channels her deep-seated passion for writing and storytelling to create compelling narratives that shed light on the diverse residents of Kansas City.
Prior to her role at Startland News, Taylor made valuable contributions as a reporter for the Columbia Missourian newspaper, where she covered a wide range of community news and higher education stories.
2025 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Voodoo Volleyball bounces back in OP: Father-daughter duo doubles as new venture’s setters
Quinn Austin put several sports to the test as a preteen — racing from basketball practice to softball to volleyball. But she latched on to just one. “Volleyball. It was my sport. Everyone was having a good time,” she said. “We just loved the cheers — a cheer when we got a hit, a cheer…
Black farmers are losing ground in the fight to feed their communities, advocates say
More than a century of systemic land dispossession and discriminatory practices has left Black farmers with less than 0.6 percent of U.S. farmland — less than a third of the 16 million acres they operated in 1910, according to local urban farming advocates. They gathered Tuesday at Independence Boulevard Christian Church to confront this history…
Cracking egg-flation: How farmers, substitute ingredients help restaurants mitigate price spike
Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Kansas City PBS/Flatland, a member of the Kansas City Media Collective, which also includes Startland News, KCUR 89.3, American Public Square, The Kansas City Beacon, and Missouri Business Alert. Click here to read the original story. Whether ordering an omelet, French toast, chicken n’ biscuits, chilaquiles, corned beef hash…
Soccer tennis comes to KC ahead of World Cup; here’s how a weekend street festival is kicking it across the map
Ryogoku Soccer Academy — with the help of local businesses like MADE MOBB, Café Ollama, and Café Cà Phê — is taking soccer from the pitch to the streets of Kansas City’s historic Northeast, Brad Leonard shared. As the metro gears up for hosting World Cup games in 2026, the neighborhood-based international school and soccer…