The Prince Albert Catholic School Division and partner the Catholic Education Foundation has submitted a project to the SSBA to expand school food infrastructure.
It was recently announced that the SSBA has been approved to receive $1 million in federal funding to expand school food infrastructure.
Director of Education Lorel Trumier updated the board on the application at their regular meeting on May 5.
“We have done partnerships and work with the Catholic Education Foundation for resources and social justice projects across our school division for many years,” Trumier said,
The project called “Expanding school food infrastructure in Saskatchewan: Ensuring equitable reach” will distribute up to $1 million to eligible organizations across the province who are serving school food and nutrition programs for children and youth in need. The money will come from the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) School Food Infrastructure Fund (SFIF).
“One of the criteria is that the foundation is the organization that actually makes the application on our behalf and we agree to that partnership,” Trumier said.
“We know that it’s going to have a big impact on our students.”
The application is for food services equipment to be purchased and installed at Ecole St. Mary High School. The equipment will not only support food services for Ecole St. Mary, it will also benefit students at St. Michael School.
Trumier said the new equipment can help expand food offerings.
“I’m particularly excited about the opportunity of serving more indigenous or culturally relevant foods,” she said. “We have many Indigenous students, we have many, for example, Filipino students. We can bring different types of food in and have a little bit more space and opportunity for them to taste some of the culturally relevant foods that are out there.”
Another growing population of students is those from West Africa. Trumier said that cultural food options could be in more than just those two examples.
SSBA President Shawn Davidson said in an interview with the Herald that the funding will be used to help third party agreements that school divisions in the province. That would include things like breakfast programs such as Feeding Our Futures in Prince Albert.
Key project outcomes include increasing the capacity of organizations to provide or upgrade food preparation spaces, storage, equipment, and transportation/delivery. Davidson said the goal is to improve food environments within schools and strengthen community food security.
Eligible recipients are community-based, not-for-profit organizations engaged with school food programs.
According to an SSBA press release, the organization will monitor the progress of recipient activities, and support the program through our School Food Roundtable, Kaylee Michnik, SSBA School Food Programs Researcher and Kelly Berlinic. According to the SSBA Michnik was instrumental in exploring and securing this grant, and Berlinic has long supported a school food grant through the Mosaic School Nutrition Challenge.
Trumier said they are hopeful their application will be successful.
“We’re really looking forward to having a little bit of support to expanding and maintaining some equipment that is starting to age,” she said. “This is a wonderful grant opportunity that we’re going to try to take advantage of and hopefully we’re the successful application for an award of those funds. We’re grateful to the Catholic Education Foundation for doing that on our behalf.”
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
