(From the December 2005 Newsletter)
Second Kids Café Now Open
In an effort to take a bite out of hunger in Portland, one dozen local businesses and foundations including SVPP have contributed more than $200,000 in monetary support, services and equipment to open the Kids Café eatery at the Blazers Boys and Girls Club in Northeast Portland. The facility celebrated its grand opening in late September and now feeds hungry children in Northeast Portland.
Kids Café is a children's food program designed to reduce child hunger and educate children about nutrition and exercise. The Blazers Club Kids Café provides after-school meals to as many as four hundred children a day. For many kids, these are the only full meals they receive in the day.
A Kids Café at the Wattles Boys and Girls Club in southeast Portland opened in July 2004, and a third Kids Café at the Hillsboro Boys and Girls Club is scheduled to open in 2006, at such time as additional funding has been secured.
CASH in the News
The November 7th edition of The Oregonian had an article that highlighted the impact that CASH can have in the community citing a specific example of an individual who was able to buy a home after learning that she could file for Earned Income Tax Credit from the federal government. It is estimated that $33 million in annual Earned Income Tax Credits are going unclaimed in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties. Around Oregon, the number is more like $75 million a year. Quoting Jim Harper, Executive Director of CASH, "that's a lot of money to leave on the table." CASH's mission is to put more money into the hands of people who need it. But it also intends to teach low-income people how to repair their credit, build a savings account and develop better spending habits, so they don't have to depend on car title or payday-loan offers, which tend to have extremely high interest rates.
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