On Monday, October 19th, our community kitchen’s production line will begin to pump out freshly prepared, nutritionally balanced, and much improved afternoon meals for over 700 youngsters at 8 Orange, Osceola and Seminole locations.
The community kitchen honed its skills this past summer, serving up almost 117,000 meals for the Summer Food Service Program during 55operational days at 40 locations. Earlier this month, our production staff began working with Orange County Public Schools to provide lunches and snacks to 20 Head Start sites.
For years, Second Harvest has relied on outside prepared food providers to support its childhood hunger programs. Now, with the proven performance of our Community Kitchen, this function can be handled internally. More importantly, in-house food preparation allows for better control over menu planning, freshness, and temperatures.
Economic benefits also ripple into the local economy as workers are hired and raw product is sourced.
The Kids Cafe program reaches almost 2,000 children each and every day school is in session.
Since becoming a sponsor in 2002, Second Harvest has provided over 1.7 Million meals; over third of those since September 2012.
To see the location of our Kids Cafes, follow this link: Kids Cafes
To learn more about our Summer Food Program, follow this link: http://www.summerfoodflorida.org/