Benniam Means peeled a red fruit roll-up from its protective wrapping and plopped the snack in his mouth Monday afternoon during an enrichment portion of SAFE BASE activities at Jefferson Elementary School.
His youthful innocence keeps Benniam from knowing that the food class and others may not make it through the school year.
“What’s in it?” asked Wanda Kneen, instructor in the food detectives class. “What does your mouth tell you?”
Hands shot up.
“Strawberry. Watermelon. Lemon,” several of the 30 students in the class answered.
“OK,” said Kneen, not in affirmation but to connect to another phase of the exercise. “What do you think it is made of?”
She then rattled off several types of fruit, corn syrup, sugar, cottonseed oil and food coloring. With strawberry being the most mentioned, Kneen finally allowed that the taste came from flavoring put in the roll-up, which contained mainly sugar.
“That’s what they are, a lot of sugar,” she concluded.
The lesson showed students that snacks advertised as healthy and nutritional aren’t always.
The food detectives section is one of 10 enrichment classes offered by the after-school program, now in its 12th year. The main purpose of the program is for homework and academic assistance.
Funding has been secured to March 1, said Angela Eyster, program director.
Eyster depends on state and federal grants to fund the popular program.
An application for $25,000 to the Kansas Health Foundation would see the program through the end of the school year.
“We’ve applied and now we’ll just have to wait and see,” Eyster said of the Dec. 1 decision. “That would take us through the end of the second semester,” but still leave a summer session questionable, not to mention next school year.
Meanwhile, she said income such as a $2,500 grant from the Kansas Department of Education to help with the SAFE BASE gardening program, $1,000 from Walmart, $393.93 from the Iola Lions Club when it disbanded and $180 from a Great Southern Bank fundraiser were helpful and much appreciated. That support has come in the past two weeks.
On Oct. 26 Eyster will be one of five presenters at a Champions for Kids program in northwest Arkansas. Walmart officials and representatives of its corporate suppliers will listen to pleas of assistance for SAFE BASE and similar student programs in Boston, New York City and two Arkansas cities.
“I’m hopeful, but I don’t know what to expect,” said Eyster.
She also is eager to attract more volunteers, necessitated by the tight budget. “We just don’t have enough money to have a full, paid staff,” she said.
Eyster said this year 255 K-5 students were enrolled, “the most we’ve had for several years.” Voluntary attendance for the four-days-a-week program — Fridays are taken off — this year has averaged a high of 229 on Tuesdays.
The first of four sessions started Sept. 12. A new one will kick off on Halloween, Oct. 31.
PARENTAL involvement is encouraged and has been a big part of SAFE BASE since it started. Parents and friends will be invited to another of the program’s “blue plate specials” on Nov. 2.
Then, the young students will show what they have learned in gardening, nutrition and food-preparation classes by serving a meal based on pumpkins.
“We’ll have pumpkin chili — I’ve had it, it’s really good — and also vegetarian chili for those who prefer not to eat meat,” Eyster said. “The kids will fix everything,” from lessons learned.
During the meal, students tutored by Kneen to be good food detectives will help their parents delve into the secrets of what they eat, ask them to have their taste buds solve the mysteries of the food.
After-school program funding in question
