A West Side community center was full of energy on Sept. 9 as Kids Cafe, a program that will feed healthy meals to needy children, launched a new location at the Marillac Social Center.

Award-winning chef, restaurateur and TV personality Rick Bayless, along with his daughter Lanie, helped celebrate the grand opening. They cooked up some excitement, giving a culinary lesson and serving up Bayless’s fresh-cooked creations to about 100 hungry and excited children who attended the opening at the East Garfield Park community center.

Kids Cafe is a national program of Feeding America, formerly known as America’s Second Harvest, that provides free meals and snacks to low-income children through after-school programs at places like the Marillac Social Center, 212 S. Francisco Ave. The program serves approximately 90,000 children every year across the country.

Feeding America is a network of 205 food banks that provide food directly to 63,000 agencies. The Greater Chicago Food Depository will provide the food to this Kids Cafe site.

The program focuses on serving primarily elementary school-aged children from low-income families, who are near or below the federal poverty line. That comes out to be approximately $39,000 per year for a family of four, according to Maura Daly, vice president of government relations for Feeding America.

“We are talking about very low-income families here whose children are at risk of going hungry and often don’t know where their next meal will come from,” Daly said. “In many cases, a Kids Cafe meal may be the only meal that children get outside of school during the week.”

There are about 50 Kids Cafe locations in Cook County and 1,700 nationwide. The new program at the Marillac Social Center is being funded through a three-year $1 million grant from Uncle Ben’s Rice, part of Mars Foods.

Bayless, who owns the highly successful Frontera Grill, 449 N. Clark St., and the upscale Topolobampo restaurant, 445 N. Clark St., has been active in anti-hunger programs for a number of years and has taught cooking classes at community centers around Chicago.

“This kind of project is really super necessary because this is a very underserved neighborhood,” Bayless said. “Not just in terms of services for the community but also for things like grocery stores.”

Bayless, who brought an array of fresh produce for the cooking demonstration from a Chicago farmers market, said it’s important for kids to get healthy, fresh foods, which are “the real food.”

During the cooking demonstration, Bayless showed the children some ingredients that he said might be different than what we’re used to, like tomatillos, cilantro and yellow tomatoes, as he prepared them for the recipe. When asked if they had ever tried these before, nearly all the children answered “No.”

Bayless said he wanted to give the opportunity to the children to experience something new and to taste some food that they maybe had not tried before.

As chips and green salsa were passed tried these before, nearly all the children answered “No.”

Bayless said he wanted to give the opportunity to the children to experience something new and to taste some food that they maybe had not tried before.

As chips and green salsa were passed around the tables, the children dug in. Later, when the main dishes were served, the kids happily tested the food.

“Cooking is not really my thing but it’s always good to learn something new,” said Marquiesha Coleman, 15, who helped Bayless out on stage during the cooking demonstration.

Coleman, who attended the Marillac Social Center regularly during elementary school, still comes back to the center to play with the younger kids and take advantage of some of the programs.

“I think [the Kids Cafe] will better the kids’ nutrition so it’s going to be a good thing,” Coleman said.

Kids aren’t the only ones excited about the program-parents are, too.

“The parents have been thrilled with the Kids Cafe,” said Maureen Halligan, executive director of the Marillac Social Center.

Through the grant, the Marillac Social Center was also able to fund an exercise room with all new equipment and hire a trainer and nutritionist.

“It’s like a health club,” Halligan said. “Not only for the kids but for the community.”

Cooking can be good for more than just your appetite, Bayless said. He said that it can be a great family activity, too, and a way to spend quality time together.

“Our daughter started cooking when she was really little,” Bayless said. “We would just give her something she could do, just any little thing, so she could be part of the preparation of the meal.”

Bayless’s teenage daughter regularly appears on his television show, “Mexico-One Plate at a Time,” which is in its fifth season on PBS.

They also wrote a cookbook together titled Rick and Lanie’s Excellent Kitchen Adventures.

For more information about Feeding America visit their website, FeedingAmerica.org, and for more infomation about the Marillac Social Center visit their website, MarillacHouse.org.