KIDS CAFE
Kids Cafe is an after-school and summer meal program
that provides nutritious snacks and meals to children ages 5-18 who are at
risk for hunger. Kids Cafe programs often supplement food assistance with nutrition education activities as
well as homework help, mentoring, and recreational opportunities.
In 1989, two young brothers broke into the kitchen
of a housing project's community center in Savannah, Georgia looking for
food. When discovered, the older child calmly explained to the police
officer, "My brother was hungry." Presented with this situation of children
in need, the Second Harvest Food Bank of Coastal Georgia opened the first
kitchen in the nation to feed needy children exclusively on June 17, 1989.
Four years later, America's Second Harvest (now
Feeding America), the
largest charitable domestic hunger-relief organization in the U.S., officially launched
Kids Cafe as a national program. Kids Cafe has grown to become one of the
country's largest meal
service programs. More
information on this program is available on the Feeding America web site page for
Kids Cafe.
In November of 2001, America's Second Harvest released its third and most
comprehensive study of hunger in the United States:
Hunger in America. According to this study, over 9 million children
are the recipients of food from either a pantry, kitchen or shelter within
the network of Feeding America. Kids Cafes around the nation
are helping to combat this problem.