Rachael Ray's Non-profit Organization Yum-o!

Well Kiddos

Led by Manuela Hipkins, the San Francisco Bay Area, California-based Well Kiddos organization advocates providing children with healthy food choices when dining in or out. A mother of three young children and a pediatric Speech and Language Pathologist, Hipkins developed a deep respect for the connection between nutritional habits of the children she treated and the effectiveness of their therapy. She was inspired to launch Well Kiddos with the goal of providing children the opportunity to develop lifelong healthy eating habits. The organization's vision is to change kids' menus at restaurants locally and nationally, "one restaurant and one family at a time."

The Well Kiddos program is designed to help both restaurants and parents:

• Restaurants – Well Kiddos helps restaurants evaluate their current menus and advises them on ingredient choices to make the items healthier for children. The organization provides promotion for the healthy menus through its blog, website and PR.
• Parents – Well Kiddos helps parents make better choices for their children by evaluating and promoting healthy restaurant menus, providing a community forum for news and discussion and providing other services such as in-home cooking classes and pantry makeovers.
• Schools – Well Kiddos provides educational classes to enhance schools' curricula via hands-on cooking demos, interactive lectures and menu reviews for school lunches.

Visit the Well Kiddos website to learn how is improving kids' menu choices one restaurant and one family at a time!