Missouri grandma ordered to stop serving free breakfasts refuses to back down, 'They are my family'

A Missouri grandmother says she was frightened she could end up in legal trouble after county health officials told her to stop serving free homemade breakfasts without a permit, but she told Fox News Digital she has no intention of giving up the morning tradition that brings her tiny community together.

"I'm not gonna stop providing for my community," Kathy Kite of Harrisburg, Missouri, told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday.

"I wouldn't stop feeding my children, I wouldn't stop feeding my family.

I'm not gonna stop feeding my community cause they are my family….This is bigger than that.

It's about love and appreciation because they appreciate what I do." Kite has been cooking a free breakfasts for her neighbors and friends since May.

In July, she received a letter from the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department that said she needed to obtain a food permit or face possible legal action.

YOU SHOULDN’T NEED A PERMIT TO PRAY IN YOUR OWN HOME — THE SUPREME COURT SHOULD AGREE "I got the letter in July, it upset me, because I didn't understand what I was doing wrong," Kite said.

"It hurt my feelings, and it upset me because I knew at that point I was afraid I was gonna go to jail because the letter stated that if I didn't stop making breakfast for my community, that I was facing fines and jail, and so I posted it on Facebook and people responded." The Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department denied that their letter threatened jail time, in comments to Fox News Digital.

Kite said that after the local gas station where she works stopped serving breakfast following COVID , regular customers kept asking for it, so she invited them to her home and began cooking breakfast for them, herself.

Kite said that what began as an early-morning breakfast for a few regulars quickly spread across the town of fewer than 300 people.

More residents began stopping by for coffee and breakfast, staying to talk about farming, the weather and childhood memories.

The growing sense of community motivated her to wake up even earlier to cook, and soon local mothers were bringing their children by for breakfast before school.

ORTHODOX JEW ASKS SUPREME COURT TO HEAR CASE AFTER CITY ALLEGEDLY TARGETED HIS HOME PRAYER GROUP Kite said the letter from the Columbia/Boone County Public Health and Human Services Department says that she must install a commercial kitchen in her home.

"In order for me to comply with what they're asking, I would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have a commercial kitchen in my home," Kite said.