Waitlist for London school meal programs to keep hungry kids fed grows as donations shrink

High food costs are forcing many London families to send their kids to school without enough food to get through the day, officials who run a community-based student nutrition program say. 

Nearly 23,000 students are signed up to breakfast and lunch programs at London-area schools through the Ontario Student Nutrition Program (OSNP), said Danielle Findlay, who is a supervisor with the program.

"We are seeing an increase in the need and the access for student nutrition programs and we are hearing that first hand from school administrators and teachers — our wait list is growing, so it's quite concerning," she said.

AUDIO | More kids than ever rely on breakfast and lunch programs to keep them going

Funding for the nutrition program is shared by the province, which covers 15 per cent, and third-party donors, fundraisers, grants and partners within the community, who cover the rest.

"It's challenging because community organizations are competing for those dollars right now and donations are decreasing because of the added pressures on family budgets," Findlay said. 

The program is available to any student who needs it regardless of their socioeconomic status, she added

"We've got students coming to school hungry because they've been on long bus commutes for upwards of an hour, or they're involved in extracurricular activities in the morning, or students are just growing very rapidly and they're hungry at school," she said.

Food donations across the city struggling

Recently, the student-run food bank at Western University put a pause on walk-in services because it's dealing with three-times the demand it had last year and there are not enough donations, or volunteers, to keep up.

A grassroots program that has provided about a week's worth of lunches to more than 400 struggling families in London since starting in April is also overwhelmed with the need, said Alexandra Everitt, co-founder of Lunch Box London.

"About a week before school started this year, we started getting a large amount of people asking for help and we're continuing to get these requests," Everitt said.

In September, Lunch Box London provided lunches for 60 families. No matter how many families they help, the wait list never dips below 40 names, she said. 

"Whenever we do a push asking for donations on social media, people who need help see it and reach out. So, our list just keeps increasing every day," she said.

The Ontario Student Nutrition Program is also struggling with a lack of volunteers who can properly run the meal programs.

"These programs do not have a paid staff member on site and they're heavily reliant on volunteers," Findlay said.

Anyone who is interested in volunteering can sign up on their website.

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