The Food Bank of Central Louisiana opened its first Kids Cafe program in Natchitoches parish at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, serving approximately 50 school children every weekday after school. This program is a partnership between the Food Bank of Central Louisiana, the Boys and Girls Club of El Camino Real, and The Rapides Foundation.

Kids Cafe is one of the nation's largest meal service programs, providing free and prepared food to hungry children in safe and nurturing environments. This after school program provides nutritious hot meals and snacks to youth that might not otherwise receive evening meals. In addition to providing meals, Kids Cafe offers nutrition education, tutoring, character enrichment, and recreational activities.

A new component to this program will be nutrition education for the parents and families of the Kids Cafe participants.

"This new component of the program will address food insecurity and hunger by promoting short-and long-term solutions," said Jayne Wright-Velez, executive director of the Food Bank of Central Louisiana. "People with skills in nutrition, cooking, food budgeting and food safety are better able to provide nutritious food for themselves and their family, thus improving health, stretching limited resources, an moving toward self-sufficiency and improved, more secure lives."

The 2000 U.S. Census data indicates that of the 118,269 children living in the 11-parish service area of the Food Bank of Central Louisiana, 12,837 (11%) are living in homes below the poverty line. In Natchitoches parish more than 24.6% of families are living below the federal poverty level. The elementary schools in Natchitoches parish have an average of 72.63% of their students that receive free or reduced meals. Thirty percent of children (age 6-17) in Natchitoches parish are overweight.

The Kids Cafe Initiative began in 1989 with the Second Harvest Food Bank of Coastal Georgia, in Savannah, Georgia. Two boys were caught stealing food from the kitchen of a local community center. The director of the local center and officials of the Second Harvest Food Bank developed the Initiative to address the problem of child hunger. In 1993, Feeding America launched the national Kids Cafe program. Feeding America is the nation's largest charitable hunger-relief organization. The Food Bank of Central Louisiana has been a member of Feeding America since 1995.

This project is being funded through The Rapides Foundation's Diet and Physical Initiative which seeks to improve healthy eating and physical activity opportunities for adults and youth in Central Louisiana.

The Food Bank of Central Louisiana recently received a $3,600 grant from the Gannett Foundation and The Town Talk to support the Adopt-a-Senior program. 

The Food Bank's Adopt-a-Senior Program was designed to help supplement impoverished seniors nutritional needs so that they are not faced with the difficult decision of choosing between medicine, rent and food.  Seniors in the program receive 50 pounds of food per month for a year.  A $100 donation to the program will help provide food for a senior in our community.