Name: Edna and David Tevet
Hometown: Charlotte, NC
Job: Owner, Ollie’s Restaurant
Excerpts from the Restaurant Neighbor Award Recipient
“Disturbed by the sweeping magnitude of childhood hunger and deeply concerned about its myriad ramifications, Edna and David Tevet wanted to tackle it head on, but first opted to thoroughly investigate and understand the problem.
“Step one was to find a workable solution, so I started interviewing teachers, nutritionists and researchers, and one of my customers was the head of Human Services for the county,” says David Tevet, who is the owner of Ollie’s restaurant in northeastern Pennsylvania.
“We learned that, besides the obvious human suffering, hunger has an adverse effect on children’s physical and mental health, their behavior, and their school performance.”
Armed with an arsenal of knowledge and plenty of anecdotal evidence about what doesn’t work, the Tevets launched Dinners For Kids in February of 2011 with 40 kids in the pilot program.
“We came up with the idea of providing these children with freshly prepared, kid-approved nutritious and balanced dinners in microwave-safe containers, accompanied by fresh fruit,” says Tevet.
Each child receives six meals a week that are prepared in Ollie’s kitchen and delivered by volunteers. Using Ollie’s buying power the program is able to provide complete dinners such as turkey with mashed potatoes and carrots for only $2.20 apiece, which is well under the federal rate of $3.25.
By assuring these meals are microwaveable it allows the kids to be hands on. “The idea always was to make sure we had a program that kids could handle by themselves,” says Tevet. If families don’t own a microwave the program will provide the necessary funds.
The recipients, who are identified by teachers and Children & Youth field officers, are fed year round as are all of their siblings. Currently there are 120 children who are the beneficiaries of Dinners For Kids, which translates to more than 37,000 meals annually.
“If I wasn’t in the restaurant business I wouldn’t be able to do this,” says Tevet. “We are able to do it at a low cost because we use our restaurant and are willing to waive the overhead.”
