Obesity has reached epidemic proportions (if you’ll excuse the pun), in Americans, and in particular, is affecting our youth. Combating this state of affairs is urgent, because being obese means being unhealthy and at high risk for serious disease. One way to fight back is to teach children about nutrition. Which is why Kars4Kids has awarded small grants to organizations such as BCAUSEICAN, the Gary Comer Youth Center, Kids Cooking for Life, and The Bridge. All of these organizations are, in one way or another, fighting the good fight for better nutrition and healthier children.
And at Kars4Kids, we’re down with that!
BCAUSEICAN is mentoring children in the Washington, DC, area. One important program run by this organization, the Health and Wellness program, educates both children and their parents about healthy ingredients; how to create quick, healthy meals; and how to make healthy choices when dining out.
Kids Cooking for Life reaches children with the message about good nutrition through their stomachs. Kids love to cook, goes the theory, so KCL brings kids into the kitchen. This organization, moreover, brings the kitchen to kids, taking its innovative nutrition education and cooking program into classrooms. KCL knows that kids want familiar food, so it often goes ethnic, teaching recipes that are familiar to the child population it serves.
At the Gary Comer Youth Center, inner-city youth see, many for the first time, how vegetables are grown. They learn how to garden, and they learn how to cook what they grow. Because kids are more likely to eat unfamiliar, healthy vegetables that they grow with their own two hands!
At The Bridge, cooking classes are a fun diversion that helps keep suburban children from hanging on the streets (A/K/A White Picket Fence Syndrome), and engaging in, for instance, substance abuse. Because cooking classes are enjoyable, they’re a draw to the teen community served by The Bridge. The community center uses these classes to teach children to eat more healthfully.
Kars4Kids is grateful to be able to help other nonprofit organizations do their own good work for children. Because at Kars4Kids, we’re all about the kids. #allaboutthekids
