Family Center Opens Free Cafe for Children

There is nothing like the appearance of Batman to divert the attention of 100 fidgeting children waiting for a meal, which is what happened when actor Michael Keaton walked through the doors of the Mar Vista Family Center earlier this week.

Keaton--minus the Batman costume--and actress Rhea Perlman served children a hot turkey meal for the launch of Kids Cafe, a new project that offers poor children free dinners during the week. Organized by the Children’s Advocacy Network, the program targets children at the center whose family incomes are below the poverty level.

“There are hungry kids all over the place, but we wanted to make the point that there are hungry kids in West L.A. too,” said Jennifer Perry, executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Network, an agency founded by people in the entertainment industry.

Offering meals for children at a family-based center where services are already being provided is a new and better way of meeting hunger needs, said Amanda Cooper, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, the meal program’s co-sponsor. Instead of standing in line with their parents for groceries or getting a meal in an austere soup kitchen, the children are served a sit-down dinner in a nurturing environment.

“A good way to get kids excited about their after-school program is to feed them there,” Cooper said.

The first Kids Cafe was founded in 1993 in Atlanta after a 10-year-old boy broke into a community center’s kitchen in search of food for his younger brother. There are now 20 sites nationwide, with Mar Vista being the first in Los Angeles.

The nonprofit Mar Vista center offers a range of family services built around a preschool that depends on parent participation. Although preschoolers who arrived early in the day were already being given breakfast and a snack, older children who came in the afternoon for tutoring were previously not offered meals and often arrived hungry, center staff members said.

Most children didn’t talk openly about being hungry, but staffers said they noticed that any food served to the kids was gobbled down.

Last February, one boy even sold his Valentine Day’s candy to give his mother money to buy milk.

“Most of the parents work in factories or the fathers work as gardeners,” said cave supervisor Victor Ake. “Some have big families and their work doesn’t bring in a lot of money.”