Students in the Prince Albert Catholic School Division received 12,711 emergency lunches in the 2023-24 school year, according to an update provided at the division’s regular meeting on Aug. 19.
The lunches were provided through the Feeding our Futures Program.
Education Director Lorel Trumier said that though one is a community initiative and one is a provincial initiative, but they both work towards the same goals.
“We are very cognizant that our children come to school sometimes without having eaten breakfast or have food in their household,” Trumier said.
On Dec. 5, 2016, Lakeland Ford, Lakeland Hyundai, the Broda Group and Lakeland Co-op collaborated to start the Feeding our Futures initiative. Conexus Credit Union came aboard in 2019.
Together, Trumier said, these businesses have fulfilled an urgent need for the children of Prince Albert – providing nutrition and better allowing children to learn.
The program serves students in both the Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division and Prince Albert Catholic School Division. It provides emergency lunches to all children in need, from Kindergarten through Grade 8.
“We are a community that has very gracious and giving organizations, and we couldn’t do it without them to provide food for students to come to school and have some food available to them,” Trumier said of Feeding our Futures.
The donated value of these emergency lunches is $26,271.56. Each emergency lunch consists of a meat sandwich, piece of fruit and yogurt.
The board also received an update that provincial nutrition funding will continue for another year under the Child Nutrition and Development Program.
“We always seek ways to supplement what is being done and try to find the opportunities,” Trumier explained. “We talked about the breakfast program which complements the emergency lunch program and that way our children are not going throughout the day without any food.”
For the new year, the province has increased the funding to $92,205, which is an over $2,000 increase.
“Those are very linked endeavors, and we are fortunate to have the opportunities to do that,” Trumier said. “We’re just trying to be strategic about you know what we’re doing and when. so that we have met our intent, which is to have food available for students.”
