Halifax schools raising $1M for breakfast programs
'Kids are coming to school without having eaten breakfast — and that affects their learning'
Schools across the Halifax Regional School Board are trying to raise just over $1 million, in order to offer 1.4 million breakfasts to students this year.
The number of breakfasts needed has increased by about 200,000 meals or three new school breakfast programs in the last year, board spokesman Doug Hadley said.
"We know absolutely that poverty provides one explanation," he said.
'No questions asked'
But more factors play into student hunger, for example, long bus rides, waking up late, having both parents working or wanting to go to school early for extra curricular activities, Hadley said.
"We don't ask them to prove that they're hungry," he said.
"We just, no questions asked, make sure they get something to eat."
HRSB receives just under $400,000 from several sources for breakfast programs, so schools must make up the rest, he said. Earlier this week staff at Halifax's Citadel High School implored parents to drop off food or grocery gift cards if they could. It costs about $1 per student per meal, Hadley said.
Kids aren't eating
There are 101 schools in Halifax with breakfast programs. All schools in boards outside of Halifax have breakfast programs, Nourish Nova Scotia executive director Margo Riebe-Butt said.
The organization helps channel about $750,000 in provincial funding to schools around Nova Scotia, and helps raise more money.
"Breakfast programs act as a springboard for other conversations about food and health in schools. We live in a really unhealthy food environment," Riebe-Butt said.
"The reality of it is, kids are coming to school without having eaten breakfast — and that affects their learning."
'A societal shift'
She said she has seen "a societal shift," of busier families, which may explain the increase of students needing breakfast.
"Parents are over scheduled. For the majority of families, both parents work in the household and then in single parent families, there's even more pressure," Riebe-Butt said.
"For families that suffer from food insecurity for many reasons, maybe they're just kind of living at the poverty line or making a living wage. Alleviating the need to buy breakfast foods in the home can make a difference for families."
Nourish Nova Scotia is advocating to the federal government, asking it consider funding school breakfasts for health reasons, she said.
With files from Shaina Luck