Kids Café

(From the April 2007 Newsletter)

On a combined basis, the Kids Cafés at Wattles and Blazers served a total of 80,721 hot meals and 67,164 afternoon/evening snacks to hungry youth during 2006.

Accomplishments:
• Nutritional education classes continue to be held at Wattles three times per week, with an average of 87 members participating each month in the programs. Both clubs will be starting a new program called Healthy Habits, a nutrition education program developed by Boys & Girls Clubs of America. The program is a multi-faceted approach designed to help young people to become healthy, active, and learn healthy eating habits, and will be implemented at least twice per week at each club.
• Wattles is continuing to work with Growing Gardens during the 2006-07 school year to teach youth how to grow and tend for food plants as well as how to incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into their daily diets. At Blazers, the Kids Café coordinator installed raised garden beds on the south side of the club so that Club kids can begin to learn how to grow their own food. It was quite successful last year and the coordinator hopes for similar results this school year.
• Construction of the Hillsboro Club expansion and Kids Café started in November 2006 and is 98% complete. Grand opening events are scheduled for Friday, May 18 and Saturday May 19; the latter being a community event and outreach. This will mark the last phase of SVPP's investment in the Kids Café project of the Boys and Girls Club of Portland. SVPP's total investment of $160,000 was matched by $349,000 from other donors, and we are proud to have played a major role as lead investor and construction project management for these three Kids Cafes.

If you have any questions, please contact the Kids Café project leader, Valerie Ilsley.