GREENSBORO, N.C. — Nutrition, sustainability, and community are just some of the key principles of the Kidz Café in Greensboro.
The program is just one of several services provided by the nonprofit Volunteer in Your Community Inc.
“Children need to know where their food comes from and that’s also a way that we can reduce hunger and poverty rates because it enables them and empowers them in order to learn how to do it themselves,” Founder Tinece Payne said.
Payne founded the Kidz Café in 2015.
She’s worked with Triad schools and communities by offering hands on gardening and meal preparation learning activities for kids.
“A lot of times in school they don’t learn the basic skills of how to grow, how to eat to live,” Payne said.
“There’s very little emphasis put on nutrition and nutritional education in the school system.”
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, face-to-face activities were put on hold.
Now the organization is working to launch a series of free online educational modules for youth.
The online sessions will teach children and their parents about healthy eating and how to make their own meals.
Nutritionists and chefs like Shonda Caines of EBN’s Vegan Cuisine in Charlotte will be featured in the ten-part series.
“With the virtual program due to the pandemic, it’s given us a great opportunity to reach more people than just in our immediate community,” Caines said.
“Whether we host an event in here in Charlotte or if we hold one in the Triad area.”
In order to maintain a facility and equipment to produce the series, the group is working to raise $25,000.
Payne said proceeds from the Fourth Annual Triad Vegfest will go towards the project.
“People when they make their donations, when they buy t-shirts, when they support us, that’s all going towards this program,” Payne said.
She hopes the community will support the Kidz Café with the video series project.
“When children are hungry, they’re unable to learn and if they’re our future, we have to make sure that we are feeding them intellectually as well as nutritionally,” Payne explained.
The Fourth Annual Vegfest is Saturday June 26 at Center City Park in Greensboro from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.