Operation Food Search (OFS), a hunger relief organization that provides food to the area’s hungry, recently received a $30,000 grant from the PNC Foundation. The grant will go toward OFS’ Cooking Matters programming with an initiative entitled “Starting Early: Creating a Healthy Food Environment for Infants and Toddlers.”
Through two classes, Cooking Matters for Parents and Cooking Matters for Child Care Professionals, participants will gain skills needed to plan, shop, and cook healthy affordable meals for young children. These courses encourage child care providers to create a healthy food environment for the children they care for and work with families to encourage healthy food choices at home.
The program, which was created to ensure a healthy food environment for children ages birth to five, aims to reach at least 50 providers and 50 parents. OFS is working with a variety of partners to recruit program participants including Alexus Palace Child Development Center, Gateway Greening, Honey Bee Plus Preschool, Kornerstone Kids Preschool, United 4 Children and Youth in Need.
“We are very grateful to PNC for this grant, which gives day care providers and families the confidence to provide children with the nutrition they need to learn and grow,” said Operation Food Search Executive Director Sunny Schaefer. “Poor nutrition early in life contributes to deepening disparities and can make a family’s climb out of poverty all the more difficult. This grant will enable us to address these issues and put a halt to these dietary patterns.”
Pictured is Mary Gladys Lathan from Loving Hearts Early Learning Center. Lathan participated in OFS’ Cooking Matters for Child Care Professionals.
The PNC Foundation, which receives its principal funding from The PNC Financial Services Group (www.pnc.com), actively supports organizations that provide services for the benefit of communities in which it has a significant presence. The foundation focuses its philanthropic mission on early children education and community and economic development, which includes the arts and culture. Through Grow Up Great, its signature cause that began in 2004, PNC has created a bilingual $350 million, multi-year initiative to help prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life.
Founded in 1981, Operation Food Search (OFS) is a hunger relief organization that provides food and nutrition education. With a strategic focus aimed at ending childhood hunger, OFS empowers families with a range of programs and services proven to reduce food insecurity and increase access to healthy and affordable food.
OFS helps feed more than 200,000 individuals on a monthly basis – one-third of which are children – through a network of 330 community partners in 31 Missouri and Illinois counties, as well as in the city of St. Louis.
Operation Food Search is located at 1644 Lotsie Blvd. For more information, call (314) 726-5355 or visit https://operationfoodsearch.org.
