December 15, 2009

Kids Cafe: Designed for Kids, Strengthening Families

Author: Brady Koch

The following story is based on a telephone interview with Cassandra Williams at the Pine Hills Community Church, the site of one of our Kids Cafes.

A child was walking from school toward the Pine Hills Church Kids Café, when another youngster approached him.

 

 “Where you going”, asked the child.

“To the church”, replied the other.

“What’s there?”

 “Food!”

 “Really!”

 “Yeah”

“Can I go too?”

“Sure, they don’t mind”

Once at the church, the children were served an after school meal and then participated in the many activities the community center has to offer.

The new child returned home that afternoon and told his mother all about the Kids Café. The next day, both the mom and the child showed up.

The mom was told she would not be able to receive a prepared meal since Kids Cafes are for kids only, but since she was already there and had expressed need, she would be provided with groceries from their food pantry which is stocked with products from Second Harvest Food Bank.

As time went by, the mom began to accompany her son to the church every afternoon. The child would get his usual meal and mom would sit by his side, having brought her own meal prepared from the pantry products she had received.  Afterwards, they would linger over homework, reading improvement activities and much more.

The site supervisor tells us that the Kids Café acted as a magnet, bringing mother and child closer together. “This same story has played out on several occasions”, she commented.

 “The parents are learning from their children, and as a consequence the family grows stronger.”

 

Santos Maldonado
Childhood Hunger Programs Manager

October 19, 2009

Produce to the People!

Author: Brady Koch

This past Saturday morning we piloted our Produce to the People program at Victory World Outreach in Maitland. The goal of Produce to the People is to deliver a truckload of produce directly to a community site where it will be handed our immediately by a team of volunteers from one of our partner feeding agencies. We wanted to focus on fresh produce for this program because that can be the most difficult for our clients to have access to on a limited budget.

For our pilot, we delivered two palates of cucumbers, two palates or corn, four palates of grapefruit juice, two palates of Grocery Alliance items, and two palates of apple slices. It was a chilly morning, but Victory World Outreach estimates that they served a little over 200 people.

Volunteers were the key to success. There were at least 16 volunteer on hand. They had an assembly line set up that would make Henry Ford proud. In addition to handing out food, volunteers would help people to their cars, talk to people in the waiting line, and direct traffic. 

Thanks to everyone who helped organize this event. Big thanks to Victory World Outreach. They went way above and beyond in organizing the distribution. This Saturday we’re in Kissimmee to try it all over again with some changes here and there.

We’ll be testing out this program two more times this month in Kissimmee and East Orange County. We’ll let you know how it goes!

Upcoming Produce to the People Pilots

October 24th
8:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
Solid Rock
Church of God
1904 North Michigan Ave.
Kissimmee, Florida 34774

October 31st
8:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
New Covenant Church of Central Florida
990 Belvedere Road
Orlando, Florida 32820

Below are some photos from the event: