Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
For Cindi Knepper, Kids Cafe means she will no longer have to scrounge up food from various sources to provide free meals for youngsters at the Boys and Girls Club of Kosciusko County.
For 45 kids, the cafe was an opportunity to gobble up spaghetti, watermelon and pumpkin pie free of charge while having some fun at the Pete Thorn Center in Warsaw.
The meal, prepared and served by volunteers, represents the first nutritional site in Kosciusko County intended to serve low-income, at-risk children. It is a cooperative effort between the youth club and North Central Indiana Food Bank, which provides food to 150 agencies in 15 area counties.
The local Boys and Girls Club already provides free breakfasts on weekdays and suppers on Monday and Tuesday evenings by making arrangements with local grocers, national restaurant chains and anyone else who would cooperate, said Knepper, the agency's director.
With the food bank's support, the program will be fortified and Knepper will no longer have to continually seek out support to keep the service running.
"It will be more consistent," Knepper said.
Programs like the cafe, officials said, help fill the gap created by welfare reform, which is already seeing families do without after losing benefits.
"Our demand at the food bank has nearly doubled in the last couple months," said William Carnegie, executive director of North Central Indiana Food Bank.
"That tells us there's more families out there in need. It means there's more kids out there skipping meals," he said.
Kosciusko's Kids Cafe is the first of 12 officials plan to open in north-central Indiana.
Kosciusko was chosen as the first partly because of the existing program at the youth center. Carnegie said he hopes to involve Knepper in opening other cafes.
"She's already including mentoring and tutoring after school. It's not just meals. Meals have enhanced the program that she's doing."
Tutoring goes hand in hand during the morning program. Kids work with adults on areas ranging from the basics of tying shoes to learning the alphabet to making sure they're ready for the next school year.
"I've got second- and third-graders that can't read," Knepper said. "We're hoping with the meal, they'll focus a little bit more," Knepper said.
"The whole thing is: Feed their bellies and you feed their minds."
For more information about the club, call 268-1155.
