How rising prices are taking a bite out of school food programs
Lack of sustainable funding means some schools are cutting services
Sandra Copeland works hard to keep her kids from going hungry — all 200 or so of them.
She's the co-ordinator of the breakfast program at Carson Grove Elementary School in Ottawa. Every day she's responsible for buying food for children who rely on it to get through the day.
But like many others helping to run school food programs across the country, Copeland said she's feeling the burden of higher food prices and is having to get creative to stretch her budget.
"I go to upwards of five different grocery stores in a week, checking the flyers, checking the coupons. Just being very, very careful," Copeland said in an interview with CBC's The House, as she prepped for the program this week.
Higher prices means an increased risk of losing some favourite foods.
"I've been very touch and go on the oranges recently. Cheese has gone up significantly; the yogurt tubes, the price fluctuates significantly. Years ago, the children loved dragon fruit, so that was a nice treat. I can't do that sort of thing anymore," she told host Catherine Cullen.
"If the kids come in and they're hungry, they can't focus, they can't learn. And then where do we go from there? It's not just this that gets them through the day, but it's part of it."
Different levels of support across country
Debbie Field, a co-ordinator with the Coalition for Healthy School Food, told The House that the need for more resources is "huge" given the increase in food prices. As of April, prices were up 9.1 per cent over the same time in 2022.
Carolyn Hunter, director of the school breakfast program at the Ottawa Network for Education, said that along with price increases, the number of schools hoping to join the program has skyrocketed since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seventeen new schools in Ottawa applied to join the program, which currently has 200 schools, and Hunter said her organization has been forced to maintain a waiting list for some of those schools.
"It's excruciating. It's unbelievably challenging to say no, to be able to draw that line in the sand. But we know we just don't have the sustainable funding to be able to grow those programs," Hunter said.
School food programs fall under provincial jurisdiction, with different provinces providing different levels of support or having different points of emphasis. Advocates in Ontario, for example, have written to the provincial government asking for more support.
Field said she wants both sides — provinces and the federal government — to get serious about investing in school food programs.
Many programs will receive back from the province only a portion of the money they spend on the program, she said, and the rest will have to be made up by municipalities or donations.
"If your money runs out, what are you going to do? You either have to serve less food, serve less kids, serve less days, or shut down."
Hunter said her organization in Ottawa has been forced to access emergency funds to stretch the program to the end of the school year.
Moving forward, Field said the onus is now on the federal government to work with provinces to help create a national framework for a school food program. Currently, Canada is the only G7 country without a national school food program.
Federal program in consultations stage
That's something the federal government has started working on to change, following a 2021 campaign platform plank.
In an interview with The House, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Karina Gould described the "huge variance" in programs across the country, saying that any federal involvement would still flow through provinces and territories.
"We do believe that every child should be able to access a healthy and nutritious meal at school, but what that's going to look like province to province might be different," she said.
Gould said her department is working through consultations with schools and students around creating a kind of national guideline or goal for food programs, which provinces could then look to implement.
"I think the timing is right to bring money forward now, or in the next budget or two with regards to this," she said.
Gould said she hoped to model the eventual national program after the federal government's child-care program, in which a series of bilateral deals ensured that any money from Ottawa went directly to implementing the policy.
The minister also told Cullen that she was struck during the consultations by the importance of school food programs and the level of dedication in those who work for them.
"There are teachers across this country who get to their schools, sometimes at 6 a.m., to prepare breakfast for their students, who go the extra mile. This is way above and beyond what their job description is, but they know how important it is," Gould said.
Despite the challenges she faces, Sandra Copeland of Carson Grove Elementary is among those people who is still able to find meaning and joy in the work she does. Speaking to Cullen, she mentioned one instance in which she found mini cucumbers for a good price, thanks to a tip from a student.
"So I bought 20 packages of mini cucumbers. They were very happy. His entire classroom actually stopped and did a great big thank you for that," she said.
"I like to be behind the scenes, but it's kind of nice to get those sort of things."
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With files from Catherine Cullen and Kristen Everson