Needs of hungry kids grow as schools wait for national food program details
About 1 in 4 kids in London live in poverty, reports have said
Two months after the federal government announced the creation of a national school food program, those who serve London's hungry kids say the rollout can't come soon enough.
"We put snacks in every classroom and every day, those snacks are gone. We're hitting up local stores for donations," said Kim Phair, who runs the school snack program as a parent volunteer at Holy Rosary Catholic School in south London.
"We have at least 10 kids every day who don't bring anything for lunch, and we have more kids than that that don't bring enough. There are kids that come with a bag of Doritos every day and that's it."
Estimates have put London's child poverty rate at 25 per cent, meaning one in four kids in the city could be going to school hungry.
In its most recent budget released in April, the federal government committed to launching a national school food program, hoping to delivery meals to an additional 400,000 kids every year. The program will cost $1 billion over five years to implement.
Canada is the only G7 country that does not have a national school food program, according to the Breakfast Club of Canada. Advocates have argued that a national program is needed to fill gaps left by a patchwork of provincial, local and charitable programs that are under strain due to low resources and high food prices.
Once implemented, it would be a relief for volunteers such as Phair, who have to rely on grants from the Ontario School Nutrition Program as well as private donors such as the PC Children's Charity to get enough food to feed needy kids.
"We have snack bins every day, five days a week, for all the classes. We're feeding 40 to 50 kids every day for snacks," Phair said. "A school nutrition program would change their lives. It would help them learn better. And if they have a home life where they don't have any food, at least they can come to school to get it."
Last year, Phair got more than $7,000 from the PC Children's Charity. That program has seen an increase in demand every year, growing by 30 per cent last year. It feeds one million kids each year.
"We expect to provide funding to as many schools, if not more, than we did this year," a spokesperson for the charity said.
The charity has seen such an increase in need that it's had to stagger applications, and schools that would have gotten funding by now last year are still waiting for their allotment as they plan for next year.
"I think every school should have money provided to fund a nutrition program. It's upsetting how many kids come to school without a lunch at all, or they come with one thing and then are hungry for the rest of the day," said Crystal McGill, an early childhood educator at Cartier Public School. Last year, the school got just under $11,000 from the PC Children's Charity.
"We use every penny every year until it's gone," she said. "We order veggies, crackers, granola bars, bagels with cream cheese or cheddar cheese. There would be a lot of hungry kids missing out on a good education without something sustainable to eat," she said. "These kids really depend on it. I fill the snack bin on Monday and it's empty by Wednesday."
For some kids, the snacks from the school bins are the only fruit or vegetables they eat in a day, McGill said. "It's really, really important for every school to be funded for a school nutrition program."
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