David Tevet, founder/CEO of Dinners for Kids, awarded AllOne Foundation for enabling Dinners For Kids to serve more families that suffered during the pandemic, lost their jobs, and lost out on school lunches for their children, who were struggling to learn from home. John Cosgrove was honored as the CEO of AllOne at the 5th annual dinner held on October 13th at Misericordia University.
Dinners For Kids was founded more than 11 years ago by Edna & David Tevet and Ollie’s Restaurant to address childhood hunger by providing daily prepared, nutritious and balanced dinners — accompanied with fresh fruit — to at-risk children.
“The goal, and enduring objective, is to do everything possible to ensure that children never again go to bed on an empty stomach,” Tevet said.
Today, Tevet said the program feeds more than 190 children year-round in the Wilkes Barre, West Side and Dallas areas, providing 60,000 meals annually to children who otherwise would be deprived of dinner or subsist on unfulfilling and unhealthy snacks.
“The research is irrefutable,” Tevet said. Healthy meals for children are essential for growth, development, and learning. John Cosgrove and AllOne Foundation deserve this recognition and expression of appreciation.”
Tevet said non-profit organizations are making the world a better place. In his role as CEO of AllOne Foundation & Charities, Tevet said Cosgrove has helped many non-profit organizations in our community expand and thrive.
About Dinners for Kids
Tevet said Dinners for Kids’ mission it to fight childhood hunger year-round by providing daily prepared nutritious dinners and fresh fruit to children in need in our community.
Program narrative
Eleven years ago Edna and David Tevet of Ollie’s restaurant became aware of the magnitude of childhood hunger in our backyard.
With estimates of 15 million hungry children in our country — 11,770 in Luzerne County — the Tevets decided to found the “Dinners For Kids” (DFK) program, with the goal of fighting childhood hunger with healthy meals.
“We learned that, besides the obvious human suffering, childhood hunger has an adverse effect on children’s physical and mental health, their behavior, and their school performance,” Tevet said. “Talking to teachers and human services officials, we found out that there are many at-risk children whose only decent daily meals are subsidized school lunches.”
Tevet said many children go to sleep every night on an empty stomach, hence the idea of providing these children with freshly prepared, kid-approved nutritious and balanced dinners in microwave-safe containers, accompanied with fresh fruit.
“We started the program in February of 2011, delivering six meals per week, year round, directly to the children’s homes, ensuring that the children never again go to sleep on an empty stomach and reversing all the negative effects of childhood hunger,” Tevet said.
Tevet said the program was built as a system that can be replicated by other food service facilities. Misericordia University and it’s Food Service provider — Metz Culinary management — joined the program in 2016, serving meals to children in need in the Back Mountain. In 2021 the program was replicated in Monroe County, NY.
Today, the program serves 170 at-risk children for a total of over 50,000 meals per year, to children in Wilkes Barre, the West Side and the Dallas area.
The food is prepared at Ollie’s Restaurant and at Metz at Misericordia, and then packaged and delivered to the children’s homes by volunteers.
What’s the cost and how is it funded?
Using Ollie’s and Metz buying power, their kitchen efficiencies and volunteers to package and deliver the meals, DFK succeeds in producing complete meals for $3.20 per meal, $1,000 per year per child.
The program depends solely on donations and grants. All the funds donated to the program are used for the direct costs of preparing the meals. It is a volunteer-based program, with no paid staff and no facility expenses.
To date, DFK has served over 300,000 meals to hundreds of at-risk children, raising over $800,000 to cover the cost of the food.
How are children identified for participation?
The participating children are referred to the program by schools and Head Start guidance counselors and principals, and by case workers at Children & Youth Services.
Once a child is identified, DFK feeds all the minor siblings in the household. Our goal is to feed the children, while the parents/care takers are not capable of doing so, but direct them to other social services that can help them get back on their feet.
To achieve that, in collaboration with Family Service Association of Northeastern Pennsylvania, printed information on other local resources, ranging from financial assistance, food banks, mental health services, substance abuse services, housing programs, and other local providers is given to each family. Families are directed to call 211 with other issues that may arise.
What outcomes have been achieved?
The results to-date have been far beyond the expectations. The teachers and social workers report that there is major improvement in the participating children’s behavior and learning ability.
From letters from the families, they have learned that not only do the kids not go to sleep hungry anymore, receiving the dinners also reduces stress in the families, and helps them have a family dinner together, discussing the events of the day.
The program received a grant to fund academic research by King’s College about the effect of the program on the participating children’s behavior and school performance. The results were positive.
Ollie’s restaurant won the 2015 National Restaurant Association “Restaurant Neighbor Award”, as well as the state awards for 2014 and 2015.
Metz Culinary management won the 2018 PA restaurant association “Restaurant Neighbor Award.”
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