Lori Sanders has two full-time jobs: working at a hospital and raising three children by herself. So, a new club for kids that provides her daughters with a nourishing evening meal has Sanders smiling.

“It helps me out a lot because I don’t get off work until real late,” Sanders says. “I just don’t know what I’d do without this program.”

The Kid’s Dining Club is run by United Community Centers in Fort Worth, a United Methodist-affiliated organization that offers services for people in need, including childcare, tutoring, social skills development, and substance abuse education. The Club feeds 140 children a day at two locations.

Floyd R. Davis, Jr., president of United Community Centers, said they decided to provide dinners when several workers learned that many children participating in their programs went to bed hungry.

“A lot of these children’s families have emergencies and have to pay for medical bills or for prescriptions and they have to cutback some place, and food is one of those places,” Davis says.

Besides providing nutrition, Davis says sharing evening meals will give the children an opportunity to sit down in a family setting and engage in conversations about the day’s events in a safe, nurturing environment. Davis is hopeful that the sit-down dinners will also reinforce table manners and social skills. One child’s mother told a worker that her son now says a blessing in Spanish and English before they begin their family meal.

Davis says the Kid’s Dining Club will continue in 2001 as long as he and his colleagues are able to raise the funds. The budget for the Club for this year is $78,369. The Club received start-up funds from a grant given by Texas Methodist Foundation from the Carl and Katherine Perrin Fund, a permanent endowment fund that benefits United Methodist causes.

“What we are teaching kids through this program will carry over into their homes,” Davis says. “I hope it will create a habit in these young people that will continue throughout their adult lives.”

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