The Heart and Stroke Foundation of New Brunswick received some good news about its School Food Program recently.
A $200,000 donation from the New Brunswick Medical Society will help provide food for hungry students.
Christine Roherty, Vice President of Health Promotions with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, said New Brunswick is the last province without a school lunch program.
“We need this program,” Roherty said. “New Brunswick has some of the highest rate of food insecurity in the (country), and particularly among children. We’re the last province to have it, but we’re also the province who needs it the most.”
She says one in five New Brunswick children go to school hungry or without food security, which is the equivalent of 375 school buses full of students.
The New Brunswick School Food Program is in its pilot stages of providing food access at a handful of New Brunswick schools, as they work to improve coverage across the province.
They are looking for other potential partners to help them expand the program.
Roherty says it’s not just about students with no food, but about providing ‘health and wellness opportunities for the long-term.’
“There’s also children who are going to school without the proper nutrition for their growth and development, and that’s where healthy school programs come in,” she said.
The Medical Society has been a founding partner that has worked with the Heart and Stroke Foundation on this project.
Roherty says they’re excited for the partnership which she says will ensure “no New Brunswick child goes without healthy school food.”
