Pressure on Ottawa to fund B.C. school food program to feed hungry kids

With the first full week of school underway, advocates are calling on the federal government to step in and fund a B.C. school food program that would help feed kids in desperate need of a healthy meal.

In the last provincial budget, B.C. committed $214 million over three years to expand the existing school food program — the largest investment of its kind in Canadian history.

Samantha Gambling, project coordinator of the Coalition for Healthy School Food, which is administered by the Public Health Association of B.C., says the province’s investment means B.C.’s 60 school districts will get a minimum of $350,000 this school year, while bigger ones like Surrey, Vancouver, and Burnaby will get millions of dollars.

She believes this is a good first step but admits it is not enough to feed everyone who shows up hungry.

---

Related Articles:

• B.C. Green Party calls for food program in province’s schools

• Children’s report outlines rise in food insecurity, other threats

• B.C. teachers still struggling with extra costs: Union president

  ---

“It’s not enough to feed all of B.C.’s school students three meals every day, but it’s a really great start towards, what we hope to see, is a universal school food program,” Gambling told CityNews. “This investment will, ideally, cover 20 per cent of students who are in need of food at school.”

She says community grants and donations will have to fill the gap, which is stressful.

---

---

“I think the coalition members are really frustrated and really nervous because they’re seeing a huge increase in demand for these types of programs and a huge increase in the cost of food, so they’re not able to provide as much food to students across Canada.”

It was left out of the most recent budget, but the coalition wants the federal government to include funding school food programs in the next one.

“We are advocating for $1 billion over five years in the next federal budget announcement, starting with $200 million in 2024 budget … for the entire country. Again, that is not enough to feed all students every day, but it’s a really important start.”

---

---

As of now, Canada is the only G7 country without a national school food program.

She adds recent statistics from the BC Centre of Disease Control (BCCDC) show that one in six children under 18 in B.C. face food insecurity. School food programs won’t solve the overall problem, but they will help, Gambling adds.

“Even if the provincial government gave $5 per meal, per student, to all school districts, which is a huge amount of money, they wouldn’t be able to feed every student, every day because the systems and the infrastructure and the staffing is not in place, so this really does need to be a step-by-step process and we want to see steady progress.

“But we want to make sure, it’s done in a sustainable way, so it’s not just flooding the system and being lost, basically.”