Seventeen-year-old Khushboo Patel found out firsthand the benefits of a school food program. Money was tight when she and her parents moved to Canada from India in 2005, the year she started Grade 9 at George Harvey Collegiate Institute in Toronto, a school with a meal program. So Khushboo appreciated that she could sit down before class to a grilled cheese sandwich or a muffin and juice. She remembers the good food smells in the school hallway on her first day as "really welcoming."
Khushboo started volunteering in her school's program and quickly realized that a lot of her schoolmates needed the program as much as she did. Some, working long evening hours at part-time jobs, didn't take the time to eat in the morning. Others grabbed junk food for breakfast. And still others, especially students living on their own away from family, didn't have the money to buy food. "Many students cannot afford it – they actually cannot. I've been working here for four years and I know it," says Khushboo.
She especially enjoys serving the students who enrol in her school's English as a Second Language (ESL) program, which attracts kids from across the city. When they first arrive, they often aren't familiar with the food offered. "We let them know that this is actually the nutritious food you eat in the morning," says Khushboo, who recently graduated from the school and has started in a sciences program at the University of Toronto. She adds that after a couple of months, ESL students can say "good morning" in English and ask for what they want.
Generosity
The program's organizer, Vince McCormack, is a youth worker at the school. Vince and family studies teacher Joan Seignoret started the effort 10 years ago with money out of their own pockets. In their second year, they received a small grant from BFL. For the 2008-2009 school year, they expected to serve 13,000 meals. To run the program, which continues to receive BFL funding, the pair get to school every day at 7:50 a.m., do about 200 shopping trips a year, write grant applications, raise funds and organize student volunteers. Both Vince and Joan admit to being tired. "The viability of programs depends on volunteers – it's our Achilles heel," says Vince.
Susan Kelly, the principal at Lewisville Middle School in Moncton, N.B., can sympathize. She's been running her school's breakfast program with the help of volunteers for 10 years. Before school starts every morning, about half of the 300 students, most of whom arrive by bus, congregate in the cafeteria for breakfast. "It's hard to ask a hungry kid to learn," she says.
Susan doesn't begrudge the hours she spends grocery shopping, making toast and cleaning up – all on top of her demanding work as a principal. And she realizes the program is more important than ever during the economic downturn. Indeed, she's seen the number of students at breakfast increase as more and more local parents have lost their jobs – but, sadly, she can't say for sure that her program will survive.
Page 2 of 4 - Read page three to learn how to build this program in Canada.
