Kai for Kids Charitable Trust

The Kai for Kids Charitable Trust based in Mid-Canterbury. We run a Lunch Programme which ultimately aims to feed a nutritious lunch to all children at school in Mid Canterbury, every day during the school terms, educate children and their families about nutrition and cooking food from scratch and help to provide food security for the youngest members of our community.

Our mission is to:

GROW – source food locally - work with local farmers and create our own community garden to supply fresh produce for the lunch programme.

COOK – from a central kitchen we provide lunches for each child

NOURISH – use fresh, locally grown produce – meat, dairy, grains and vegetables in every meal.

Children in our district are coming to school with no lunch, not enough lunch or food that is highly processed with little nutritional value. This detrimentally affects their health, both now and as they develop, their ability to concentrate in class, their behaviour in class and their ability to become resilient, especially in times of crisis. The state of lunch boxes also has a detrimental effect on our environment through food waste and the volume of packaging sent to landfill from lunchbox waste.

Research from a number of sources, including the Ministry of Health and the Child Poverty Action Group, has shown that feeding children at school is the greatest investment we can make, as a community, to help with effective learning for children. For every $1 invested it is estimated that there is a return of $5 to the economy. A school lunch programme goes far beyond a plate of food, producing high returns in education, health and nutrition, social protection and economic and agricultural development.

In addition to providing a nutritious meal, a school lunch helps to educate children about food and where it is grown, helps them to learn about and understand local and international food cultures, learn about healthy nutrition, display good manners and enjoy a shared meal with friends and teachers. This is at the heart of what Kai for Kids will do for Mid Canterbury.

Kai for Kids is working in partnership with many other local community service providers to help through the growing, preparing and serving of food to provide outlets for retraining, to work with cultural groups to understand the food requirements of the many cultures in our community, with The Salvation Army and SEEDS to provide cooked meals for them to distribute to families in need.

Through food we hope to break down the barriers and help understanding of other cultures, and help those in hardship, in our district.