03/06/2003
Reprinted with permission from The Post and Courier.

By Venetia Graham/For Post and Courier

A free meal service program for children is headed to Edisto Island, thanks to a $25,000 grant awarded to the Lowcountry Food Bank.

With funds from the grant, awarded by the Arthur M. Blank Foundation in January, a Kids Cafe program hopefully will be up and running by August, said Chris Enlow, director of communications and development with the Lowcountry Food Bank in North Charleston.

The grant also will help start two other cafe sites in the rural communities between Yemassee and Beaufort.

"It's great," Enlow said. "The Arthur M. Blank Foundation is a new partnership. They're directly helping us to open up these Kids Cafes."

Kids Cafe is an after-school feeding program that helps needy children.

Children targeted for the program are enrolled in the USDA National Free/Reduced School Lunch Program and are identified as not receiving a dinner meal at home.

"The focus of the program is a hot meal," Enlow said.

"We're trying to target school districts where there's a great need," specifically where 80 percent or more of the student text are enrolled in the free/reduced school lunch program.

There's also an academic component, as participants receive tutoring.

The program serves the basic goal of feeding hungry children, which can lead to better grades in school and overall better health in children, Enlow said. According to a study from The Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, there is a connection between hunger and academic performance in children.

The study cited research showing that children dealing with hunger have overall poorer health, which directly affects school attendance and makes learning a challenge.

The nonprofit Lowcountry Food Bank ranks second in the nation among 198 food banks in percentage growth over the past six years, according to Enlow.

This year, the food bank expects to distribute 11 million pounds of food to more than 400 agencies in coastal South Carolina, including 10 Kids Cafes.

The food bank covers a total of 10 counties in the Lowcountry area. Aside from the main distribution site in North Charleston, there's a branch in Myrtle Beach and Yemassee. Currently there are Kids Cafe programs in five of the counties in the Lowcountry area. The goal, Enlow said, is to have programs in all of the counties.

For more information on the Kids Cafe program, contact the Lowcountry Food Bank at 747-8146.