Charity embroiled in food fight

KidsCan - the telethon charity facing questions over how it spends its money - is now being accused of turning down free food.

The maker of foods such as Yummy Tummies school lunches has offered KidsCan about 300kg of "healthy" sausages to distribute to needy kids, but says KidsCan has refused to take the food.

One South Auckland principal said the sausages would be a healthier lunch option than the sweet foods the charity currently provides.

After the Herald on Sunday approached the charity this week, it reconsidered and agreed to accept the sausages.

First Choice Foods spokeswoman Fran Hume said the company was repackaging its products, so it had offered KidsCan surplus sausages and up to 10,000 kids' meals - including spaghetti bolognese, lasagne, butter chicken and macaroni cheese - at below cost.

She said she was astonished when the charitable trust, which distributes food and clothing to school kids in need, turned them down.

"We had watched the TV3 telethon and wanted to do something to help and I thought we could give them some food," she said. "Now I wonder what they are doing with the money people are giving them."

The telethon raised almost $2 million but was overshadowed by reports that in the previous year, only about 18 per cent of money raised by the KidsCan trust was spent on kids in need. The rest went on management and fundraising costs.

KidsCan operations director Carl Sunderland said the charity was not set up to deal with perishable food and he understood that the free sausages were on offer only if KidsCan bought the below-cost meals.

Not so, said Hume. "We were going to give them the sausages for free. We even offered to store them and distribute them.

"We couldn't give away the lunches but we offered them at significantly below cost. After all KidsCan had raised $2m which we understood was to be spent on food and clothing for kids.

"We naturally assumed they would be prepared to consider buying product offered at a significant discount," she said.

Sunderland said if the sausages were free, KidsCan would accept the donation, and the trust planned to look at whether it could distribute perishable food in the future.

Sunderland said it was "quite a lengthy process" putting systems in place to distribute food.

He accused First Choice of being disgruntled because it was trying to get a foot in the door with schools through KidsCan.

But Hume said her company had been distributing lunches to schools for years and had no need of KidsCan's contacts.

"We just didn't want good food to go to waste," she said. "We offered to solve all their problems for them.

"We would have stored this food and delivered it to the schools ourselves as we deliver around Auckland constantly through our school and retail programmes anyway."

Food for thought

Kelston Intermediate school says that the number of kids needing lunches has doubled in the past year, but that it would probably turn down meals or sausages if they were offered.

The school's financial officer, Marilyn Logan, who runs Kelston's Food for Schools programme, said the recession had hit her school hard, parents had lost jobs and she was surprised by the kids now needing food.

"They are kids that once upon a time would never have needed help," she said. "It's quite heartbreaking."

KidsCan provides the school with non-perishable food, muesli bars, pottled fruit and raisins which could be handed out discreetly to those in need.

It had also recently begun providing bread which was delivered through a tuckshop provider. Teachers provided the spreads and kids made their own sandwiches.

However, Logan said they did not have people available to supervise the distribution of hot meals and the only microwave available was in the staffroom.

"You could say it's only a five-minute job, but if you have to do that for 40 kids with only one microwave, it becomes difficult," she said.

A deputy principal at one South Auckland school, who did not want to be identified, said that the selection of food KidsCan provided was not ideal as it was all sweet.

However she said she would have to think hard about whether introducing cooked lunches or sausages would be good idea.

"It would be a healthier option, but if the food was too exciting it would encourage an influx of kids wanting free lunches," she said.