After wrapping up a two-week meal program for students at a Wallaceburg school, members of a group calling for a national nutrition program are looking for funding to continue offering the service to more local schools.
We Are One – Cathren’s Bon Appetit Inc. recently gave a free meal to all registered students at St. Elizabeth Catholic School for 10 school days. The school received an $8,000 grant from President’s Choice Children’s Charity and the organization used a donation from Ursuline Sisters in Chatham.
The meal program was open to all students, regardless of their circumstances. Sue Cummings, school liaison with We Are One, said 153 of the 167 students at the school registered to receive the meals.
“It is a non-stigmatizing food program,” she said. “All children should have access to a healthy meal at school every day.”
Brian Machado and his team at Churrascaria Steakhouse & Takeout prepared the meals in Chatham. The meals were then transported to Wallaceburg and still arrived hot, Cummings said.
The meals were different each day.
“It’s nice to have a hot lunch prepared every day,” Cummings said. “The parents don’t have to worry about packing a lunch. It’s all very nutritious.”
The program at St. Elizabeth was We Are One’s biggest project so far. It had previously done one-day pilots at three schools in 2019. Cummings said they are trying to get a national nutrition program implemented while getting these types of programs started on their own from a grassroots level.
“We did this two-week pilot just to show that it can be done, and it was extremely well received by the whole school community,” she said.
Four students told Chatham This Week they appreciated the variety of the meals and the guarantee of something to eat at lunch.
“It’s great. You just go to school and you don’t worry about what you’re packing,” Grade 8 student Chloe Rankin said. “You just get a healthy lunch for free and it tastes good.”
The operation included 15 volunteers and six people from the We Are One team.
Tricia Charles, who has a child in Grade 1 at St. Elizabeth, volunteered for the entire two weeks. She said she supports the program “100 per cent” and would like to see it in all schools.
“All the students are eating the same food, so it encourages each kid to eat healthier than they might normally eat,” Charles said. “When they’re seeing their peers eating the same food, they’ll eat.”
Tom Baker, who was filling in as principal on the final day of the program, said having a meal program without means testing “really lends itself to how everybody can benefit.
“As a principal in the system for a number of years, there certainly was a need for individuals to have quality food and it wasn’t always there,” he said. “This, obviously, is a step up in providing that for all students.”
We Are One has received statements or letters of support from the Chatham-Kent Board of Health, medical officer of health Dr. David Colby, Chatham-Kent-Leamington MP Dave Epp, Windsor-Tecumseh MP Irek Kusmierczyk and the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce .
The federal Liberals campaigned on working towards a school nutritious meal program with $1 billion spent over five years, noting three million children in Canada are not guaranteed school meals.
Cummings said they have yet to see how those funds will be spent.
“What we need people to do is to spread the word,” she said. “We need support. We want parents and businesses and anyone who has a stake in this … to put pressure on the federal government.”
More information about the program is available at schoollunchprogram.ca.