Zach Perez
Community Engagement ProducerAs KCUR’s Community Engagement Producer, I help welcome our audiences into the newsroom, and bring our journalism out into the communities we serve. Many people feel overlooked or misperceived by the media, and KCUR needs to do everything we can to cover and empower the diverse communities that make up the Kansas City metro — especially the ones who don’t know us in the first place. My work takes the form of reporting stories, holding community events, and bringing what I’ve learned back to Up To Date and the rest of KCUR.
What should KCUR be talking about? Who should we be talking to? Let me know. You can email me at zjperez@kcur.org or message me on Twitter at zach_pepez.
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The holiday season is a busy time of year for the Soul of Santa “Do Good” Foundation, an 18th & Vine based non-profit that works to provide support for low-income, disabled Kansas Citians and their families. The organization is preparing for its biggest fundraisers of the year, which includes a new ice-skating rink. -
Kansas City based painter and tattoo artist Juan Moya has spent the last three decades helping to maintain an iconic Westside mural he originally created for free. He recently finished redoing the space, but this time his community made sure he walked away with more than just pride in his work. -
An estimated 41 million members of Generation Z became eligible to vote in 2024. In Missouri, millennial and Gen Z college students have been working to get these young potential voters registered and prepared to cast a ballot. Together, they’ve put in hundreds of hours of work on everything from statewide initiatives to experiments with individuals. -
Derron Black, a former Democrat, is running as a Republican for the first time in Missouri’s 9th State Senate District. He says local Democratic leadership has failed to get his community what it needs, and that voters are ready to look elsewhere for help. Community leaders, his incumbent opponent and the area’s voting history say otherwise. -
The Kansas City, Missouri-based tenants rights advocacy group joined other tenants unions in Illinois, Connecticut, Kentucky and Montana to form the Tenant Union Federation. TUF hopes to create more effective organizing practices among tenants nationwide and push for federally regulated rent control. -
Missouri and Kansas voters went to the polls Tuesday for a number of primary elections. Among the winners was U.S. Senate Democratic nominee Lucas Kunce, who faces an uphill battle to unseat Republican incumbent Josh Hawley in November. He joined KCUR's Up To Date to talk about the race. -
Hundreds of candidates will appear on dozens of different ballots across the Kansas City metro during the August primary. They are precinct or county committee members, and they make up the backbone of their chosen party’s ability to build grassroots support and to set policy priorities. -
A young Waldo resident says he won’t vote for either presidential candidate this fall because he thinks they're too old. He believes the increasing age of candidates shows America’s political system does not serve young people. A growing number of voters under 30 agree with him. -
Debido a que KCUR cubre las elecciones del 2024 en Missouri y Kansas, queremos que los residentes y los votantes ayuden a dar su opinión sobre nuestra cobertura. ¿Qué necesita saber sobre el proceso de votación, sus carreras locales, o lo que está viendo en las noticias? -
As KCUR covers the 2024 elections in Missouri and Kansas, we want residents and voters to help shape our coverage. What do you need to know about the voting process, your local races, or what you're seeing in the news?
