Kids gets 2nd helping of healthy summer food 5.18.11

INDIANAPOLIS STAR

A program providing healthy meals to children returns to Indianapolis this summer.
Mayor Greg Ballard, Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., and other community leaders Tuesday announced details of the Summer Servings Food Service Program, which seeks to fight youth hunger.
In its second year, the communitywide effort provides free, nutritious meals to youths up to age 18. Meals will be served at 230 sites across the city and promoted by a consortium of local groups. The U.S. Department of Agriculture funds the program.
"We acknowledge today that children deserve proper nutrition regardless of their family's income or where they have grown up," Carson said. "We also acknowledge that preventing hunger is the most powerful investment that any country can make.
"How can we expect our children's minds and bodies to grow without ensuring that they receive the most fundamental tools for growth?"
Statistics show the need.
One of every four children in Marion County lives in poverty; 83 percent of students in Indianapolis Public Schools receive free or reduced-cost lunches.
And during the summer, with schools closed, finding a good meal for some of those youngsters can be difficult.
Last year, the program served 144,000 meals. But even then, only 15 percent of students who received free or reduced-price lunches made it to one of the sites.
That number needs to be significantly increased, said Douglas S. Hairston of the Front Porch Alliance, a group that helps organize the food program.
To raise awareness, officials are working with IPS and are placing 25 donated billboards across the city.
"In a crisis situation like this, we have to do something bigger than what we were doing before," Hairston said. "It wasn't necessarily the number of lunches, the number of sites or the number of workers we needed. . . . We needed to get the message to parents."
Follow Star reporter Chris Sikich on Twitter at twitter.com/ChrisSikich. Call him at (317) 444-6036.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20110518/LOCAL18/105180315/-1/7daysarchives/Summer-food-program-kids-returns-Indy

5 taxi drivers have licenses suspended
May 18, 2011  |  
A hearing officer has ordered the indefinite suspensions of the Indianapolis taxi operator licenses of five men while they are under federal indictment on drug-trafficking charges.
A grand jury indicted the cab drivers in February related to the distribution and sale of an East African plant called khat.
The city's Department of Code Enforcement had sought revocations. But in a decision issued May 10, hearing officer John C. Krause opted to keep the licenses under suspension until the criminal charges are resolved.
As of March, when Krause held a hearing, the five men -- Abdi Ahmed, Hussein Ahmed, Mohamed Hersi, Yusuf Mohamed and Mohamed Warsamey -- were in detention facilities in Indianapolis and Kentucky.
The cab drivers are Somali immigrants.
Members of some African cultures chew khat or brew the leaves as tea. But it can contain cathinone, a stimulant classified as an illegal drug in the U.S.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20110518/LOCAL18/105180360/-1/7daysarchives/5-taxi-drivers-licenses-suspended