(TRENTON) – New Jersey Department of Agriculture and USDA officials today commemorated Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) Week with a visit to Wishing Well Adult Day Health Care Center in Mercer County.

The visit highlighted the meal program at the Wishing Well facility in Lawrence Township, which feeds approximately 220 adults each day in two separate shifts five days a week. The morning clients receive breakfast, a morning snack, and lunch. The afternoon clients receive lunch, an afternoon snack, and dinner.

“This location is an outstanding example of how the Child and Adult Care Food Program provides needed nourishment to thousands of New Jersey children and adults,” NJDA Assistant Secretary Joe Atchison III said. “This program is a way for child and adult care centers and emergency shelters to offer nutritious meals so their constituents can develop or continue healthy eating patterns. We strongly encourage participation.”

Wishing Well was given a CACFP Achievement Award from the USDA for its outstanding work.

“Many of our clients depend on these meals and the services that we offer,” Wishing Well Managing Director Michael Kravchenko said. “CACFP greatly enhances our ability to serve healthy food to those in need and allows us to cater to the cultural dietary preferences of our clients.”

New Jersey’s 2,200 CACFP sites provide meals and snacks to 106,000 eligible participants at shelters, day care centers, family day care homes, after-school care programs and adult day care centers each weekday. There are  642 CACFP sponsors in New Jersey. Though the program is federally funded and administered by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, a policy change as a result of the state agency discretion allowed in CACFP federal regulations helped CACFP Adult Day Care sponsors incorporate an additional $1 in daily snack meal reimbursement per participant. This assists sponsors in meeting their food service operational costs and ensures adult participants receive the highest level of nutrient dense meals allowed by CACFP federal regulations.

National CACFP Week is an educational and informational campaign designed to raise awareness of how the Child and Adult Care Food Program works to combat hunger. The program also brings healthy foods to the table for adults in day care and children in child care homes, centers, and in afterschool feeding programs across the country.

Nationally, child and adult day care providers and centers participating in CACFP provide meals to 4.5 million children and adults each day.

To learn more about New Jersey’s Child and Adult Care Food Program, visit http://bit.ly/1FwqWwB or call 609-984-1250.

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