At Kid’s Cafe Program, It Is All Comfort Food

Children come hungry to the Kid’s Cafe at Ventura’s Westpark Community Center. Lunch is a memory and dinner hours away when they arrive after school and ask nutritionist Tina Echevarria what’s to eat.

The answer is sometimes baked chicken or homemade pizza. Other days, it might be tacos or grilled cheese sandwiches. It all depends on the donated ingredients that Food Share, the regional food bank for Ventura County, has sent over.

And while a spaghetti dinner might seem like a heavy and unpopular alternative to chips and soda at 3:30 p.m., the children who spend their afternoons at Westpark playing ball, working on computers or taking ceramics classes “just gobble it up,” Echevarria said. “I used to do just trail mix and juice and the kids always looked at me like, ‘Is there more?’ ”

At Kid’s Cafe, a nutrition program that serves free after-school and summer meals and snacks to about 3,500 children each year, comfort food is the specialty of the house. With more parents working long hours and relying on convenience foods to feed their families, the program is designed to ensure youngsters have enough nourishment throughout the day.

“Many of these children are latchkey kids, and the food we provide is kind of a filler for them until their parents get home,” said Jewel Pedi, manager of the Kid’s Cafe program. “We just want to make sure they have something nutritious in their stomachs on a daily basis so their minds can work faster doing their homework, and their bodies can be healthier as they play.”

The mission of the Kid’s Cafe program, launched in 1997, is to ensure that no child goes hungry. A recent survey commissioned by Chicago-based America’s Second Harvest, a hunger relief organization, indicated nearly one-third of Ventura County residents who rely on Food Share pantries are children.

And Kid’s Cafe is one of the few feeding programs that does not use income to determine eligibility. Every child who asks for something to eat gets it. While this open-door policy means that Kid’s Cafe inevitably serves some children whose families can afford to feed them adequately, Pedi says the investment results in an equalizing effect.

“Without it, what would happen is the kids who could afford to buy junk food from a machine would be eating food that is not so great for them, and the other kids would be sitting there watching,” she said. “We don’t draw a line and make children feel bad.”

Children Are Grateful for a Delicious Meal

The program operates at 13 locations countywide, including Boys & Girls Clubs in Simi Valley, Santa Paula and Thousand Oaks and at a Saturday school for migrant children in Oxnard. At sites without cooking facilities, the menu is limited to snacks, including fresh and dried fruit, and items that can be reheated in a microwave oven. Facilities with full kitchens, such as Westpark Community Center, serve full meals.

Kid’s Cafe’s growing patrons are a grateful bunch. At Westpark, in a working-class neighborhood between Ventura Avenue and California 33, they eat their vegetables and accept the leftovers Echevarria packs for the ones with empty refrigerators or overwhelmed parents at home.

“I like to eat at Kid’s Cafe. They have yummy food and they are kind. They serve us with generousness,” said Brianna Lopez, 8, a Westpark regular.

Carlos Landeros, 12, agreed. Although he could be on his own after school, he prefers to come to the community center. “Why make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at home when you can come here and have chicken and stuff like my mom would make?” he said.

The city sponsors the Kid’s Cafe program at Westpark center. On a recent afternoon, the youngsters sat with their siblings and friends at folding tables spread with white butcher paper tablecloths. As they ate, staff members passed by with dessert trays and drink refills.

“We are home for a lot of these kids so we try to make it as comforting as we can,” said Delfina San Miguel, the community center’s executive director. “When they leave here, dinner for many of them is McDonald’s or a cup of noodles they make themselves. The traditional, sit-down family dinner, I can guarantee that 90% of the children here have no idea what that is about.”

The Kid’s Cafe program is one of the nonprofit organizations serving disadvantaged children eligible for funding from The Times Holiday Campaign.

The newspaper established the campaign last year to aid charities that serve needy youths and families in Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The Holiday Campaign program is a part of the The Times Family Fund, which includes the newspaper’s long-running Summer Camp program.

THE TIMES HOLIDAY CAMPAIGN

Tax deductible donations: Donations (checks or money orders) should be sent to L.A. Times Holiday Campaign, File #56491, Los Angeles, CA 90074-6491. Please do not send cash. Credit card donations can be made at: https://www.latimes.com/holidaycampaign. Contributions of $25 or more will be acknowledged in the Los Angeles Times unless a donor requests otherwise. For more information about the Holiday Campaign call (800) 528-4637 (LA TIMES), Ext. 75480.