Quality Care For Children sponsors food programs at two Cairo child care centers

Quality Care For Children announced Tuesday that it is adding eight new child care programs, including two in Cairo, to its U.S. Department of Agriculture-sponsored Child and Adult Care Food Program.

The program provides a way to help child care providers deliver a better-quality food program and assist children living in food insecure homes with access to healthy food.

“By sponsoring food programs for our state’s child care providers, we help them provide a greater variety and healthier selection of food choices while saving money, which is badly needed after the challenges of the past year,” said Pam Tatum, president and chief executive officer for Quality Care for Children.

The two early learning child care programs in Cairo sponsored by Quality Care for Children are Auntie Ann’s Daycare #2, located at 431 Second Ave. S.E., and Here We Grow, located at 76 Alton Hall Rd.

Other programs announced Tuesday are located in Ball Ground, Lithonia, Tifton, Powder Springs, Covington and Kennesaw.

Providing children with consistent and highly nutritious meals is critical to their development, according to Q.C.C. information. Many families who live in food insufficient households rely on child care programs and schools for daily meals and snacks to supplement what their children eat. Without proper nutrition, children lag behind their peers in cognitive development and often have poor health overall, including a higher chance at being obese, they report.

Through the Q.C.C. program, meals are available to all enrolled children at no separate charge, helping to provide them with regular and nutritious meals daily at their child care program.

The Q.C.C. supports more than 130 child care centers and 440 family child care home programs located throughout Georgia.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program was established in 1968 by Congress to ensure children in licensed or approved daycare centers, settlement houses, and recreation centers were receiving nutritious meals.

Approximately 20 years later, following the passage of the Older American Act, new amendments allowed for participation by select adult day care centers, which initiated the name change to its current Child and Adult Care Food Program name. Ten years later, the program was further updated to allow for “at-risk” after school programs and shelters housing homeless children to participate.