The bagged lunch program for students in Anglophone East provides meals to up to 700 children daily..
Community Engagement Coordinator Heather Stordy says the program in its current form will end in a couple of weeks.
“We will continue until the traditional year end which will be June 19th. I know we are talking with the community, the United Way is talking with the community to see where we can ensure our youth can access food on a regular basis if they need it, ” Stordy says.
The bagged lunch program was created in March, when schools were forced to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Volunteers have also been putting family bags together for the weekend.
“That could consist of a loaf of bread, sardines, oatmeal, milk, all kinds of goodies to get them through the weekend. So that’s an extra effort,” Stordy says.
When students were attending school, some utilized program like the Breakfast Club, to ensure they had a healthy meal before starting their day of education.
When schools were closed, there were suddenly students going without nutritional food each day.
Stordy says this program raised a lot of awareness surrounding the issues of food insecurity in our part of the province.
“Obviously, this is a program, we would need significant resources to be able to accommodate all year round. That will be a conversation we will visit in the summer once this ends and we see where we’re at.”
Up to 100 hundred volunteers and many donors including businesses and members of the general public have helped to make the Bagged Lunch program a success.
