Lewiston, Idaho, November 19, 2002

To reduce the growing problem of childhood hunger in the Lewiston area of northern Idaho, The Idaho Foodbank, the Boys and Girls Club of Lewis Clark Valley, ConAgra Foods and America's Second Harvest have joined forces to open northern Idaho's first Kids Cafe. The ConAgra Foods Kids Cafe, which will be located at the Boys and Girls Club, provides nutritious, child–friendly meals to approximately 95 school–aged kids every day after school. In addition to providing hot meals to hungry children, the ConAgra Foods Kids Cafe offers nutrition education and social activities.

The program will include a welcome by Roger Simon, Executive Director of The Idaho Foodbank; a local welcome by Jeff Nesset, Mayor of Lewiston; remarks by Dr. Joy Rapp, Superintendent of Lewiston Unified School District; Robert Liming, Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Club of Lewis Clark Valley; Michael Halligan, America's Second Harvest's Senior VP, Business Development & Logistics and Dawnette Stewart, Human Resources Manager, ConAgra Foods Foodservice Company. The members of the Boys & Girls Club will sing a song written about the club and present each speaker with pictures they have drawn and framed.

Kids Cafe is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a national program this year. The first Kids Cafe began at a community center in Savannah, Georgia, in 1989 when police were called to the scene of a break–in. They discovered two young boys who were hungry.

Police came in and found two kids who had climbed through a window and gotten into the kitchen of the community center. They were sitting in front of an open refrigerator eating oranges and drinking milk. Shortly thereafter, the community center manager contacted the head of the local food bank and they started a program called Kids Kitchen.

Two years later, the success of Kids Kitchen catapulted it into a national program for America's Second Harvest, the country's largest food bank network. Renamed Kids Cafe, the program now has over 600 locations nationwide.

A program of America's Second Harvest and sponsored nationally by ConAgra Foods' Feeding Children Better program, Kids Cafe is now one of the nation's largest charitable meal service initiatives addressing childhood hunger. Scientists in the health–related fields have repeatedly documented the extensive long–term effects of undernourishment on children's growth and learning ability.

Nationwide, children already represent the largest segment of our society experiencing hunger. A 2001 United States Department of Agriculture study reveals that approximately 13 million children suffer from food insecurity, which means that meals are skipped or portions are cut because their families don't always have enough money to buy food.

"Childhood hunger should not exist in this country," said Lynn Phares, president of ConAgra Foods' Feeding Children Better Foundation. "But it does exist – and we're working to find solutions. If we can feed hungry children, we can give them more options to succeed."

ConAgra Foods' Feeding Children Better program is the largest corporate initiative dedicated solely to attacking childhood hunger in the United States.

ConAgra Foods' Feeding Children Better program is:

• Opening 100 new Kids Cafes.
• Revolutionizing the way food is procured and distributed through the creation of the national Rapid Food Distribution System. This program has the potential to reclaim 200 million pounds of food that could be donated to the hungry every year but is not, often for logistical reasons.
• Buying 100 trucks for half the nation's food banks by 2003.
• Sponsoring a public service advertising campaign with the Ad Council that is bringing the issue of childhood hunger into the spotlight.

Feeding Children Better is an innovative partnership between ConAgra Foods and America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest hunger–relief organization. "ConAgra Foods' commitment is an investment in the future. Hunger is a critical issue in the United States and steps such as these will ensure that no child grows up hungry," says Robert H. Forney, president and chief executive officer of America's Second Harvest.

The Idaho Foodbank, with warehouses in Boise, Lewiston and Pocatello, serves as a clearinghouse that will collect, sort and distribute more than 4 million pounds of food in 2002 to a network of more than 200 member agencies in a 39;–county area. The Foodbank provided food for more than 500,000 meals last year. To learn more about how you can help, visit the Foodbank website at www.idahofoodbank.org.

ConAgra Foods' Feeding Children Better initiative, a multi–year, multi–million–dollar commitment to attack childhood hunger, is the nation's largest corporate initiative dedicated solely to fighting childhood hunger. ConAgra Foods is one of North America's largest packaged food companies, with a strong presence in consumer grocery as well as restaurant and other foodservice establishments. ConAgra Foods' consumer brands include: Hunt's, Healthy Choice, Armour, Bumble Bee, Louis Kemp, La Choy, Lunch Makers, Knott's Berry Farm, Wesson, Country Pride, Blue Bonnet, Kid Cuisine, Parkay, Reddi-wip, Cook's, Butterball, ACT II, Slim Jim, Eckrich, Chef Boyardee, Orville Redenbacher's, PAM, Snack Pack, Van Camp's, Peter Pan, Hebrew National, Gulden's, Pemmican, Brown 'N Serve, Swiss Miss and many others. For more information, visit www.conagrafoods.com and www.feedingchildrenbetter.org.

America's Second Harvest is the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization with a national network of nearly 200 regional food banks and food-rescue programs, serving all 50 states and Puerto Rico, which distributes 1.4 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually. The America's Second Harvest network supports approximately 50,000 local charitable agencies, operating more than 94,000 food programs, including food pantries, soup kitchens, women's shelters, Kids Cafes, Community Kitchens, and their local organizations that provide food assistance to 26 million hungry Americans, including 8 million children and 4 million seniors each year. For more information, visit www.secondharvest.org.

Susan Hofer
America's Second Harvest
(312) 263-2303 x127

David Proctor
The Idaho Foodbank
(208) 336-9643