The Kansas State Department of Education has announced the Child and Adult Care Food Program participants for the current program year. The child care providers in Fort Scott participating this year are the Jungle Cubs Learning Day Care and New Generation.

"The purpose of the program is to serve nutritious meals to children," said MarSue Mackey of the Kansas State Department of Education.

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Participants in this program will be given federal funding to assist in the cost of facility meals in the form of a reimbursement. The amount reimbursed back to the child care providers is based on the number of children they service living in limited resource households. These numbers are collected by the provider then sent to the Kansas State Department of Education. The money given back to the care provides can be used to purchase more nutritious food for the children.

New Generation has been involved in the program for about 18 years now and has seen great benefits from the assistance, such as the opportunity to serve better quality foods to the children.

"This program gives the kids an opportunity to try different nutritious foods," said Beth Muss of New Generation.

Jungle Cubs Learning Day Care has just enrolled in the program for the first time.

"I needed a food program and it was the only one available to me." said Karlene Brumback, Director and Owner of Jungle Cubs Learning Day Care.

Brumback needed to change from her previous food program provider because funding would not be provided to care centers in commercial buildings.

Other participants of the program in Bourbon County are Imagination Station in Uniontown and Kiddie Corral Daycare in Mapleton. Care providers may enroll in this program at any time. Non-profit care providers are automatically eligible, while for-profit care providers must have 25 percent or more of its population coming from limited resource families. To be eligible for this program, care providers must be licensed by the state of Kansas.

"It is fortunate that we have this program in Kansas," said Muss.

For more information or to enroll, please contact the Kansas State Department of Education at (785) 269-2276 or go to www.ksde.org.