Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
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Regina Public Schools and the Regina Food Bank have teamed up to maximize the federal government’s National School Food Program (NSFP), which also receives money from the provincial government.
The partnership will focus on bolstering existing food programs and looks to further expand them.
In this year’s phased-in approach, the program is receiving $320,000.
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“For Regina Public Schools, this is a tremendous opportunity to really hurdle one of the key roadblocks to education, which is hunger,” said Mark Haarmann, director and CEO of Regina Public Schools.
“Students who are hungry are unable to focus, unable to learn. And as a school system, we’re educators – we are not the individuals who can find the food, prepare the food, distribute the food to kids and make sure that it’s nutritious and obviously well handled.
“We do have nutritionists that work for this division – we do some of that, but this just increases the efficiency, and really is an opportunity to capitalize on the scale of what Regina Food Bank can do in terms of procurement, preparation, delivery, nutrition.”
The food program is currently operating at the following schools as of Jan. 13, with a planned addition of five more on Feb. 2.
- Seven Stones Community School
- Arcola Community School
- Connaught Connaught Community School
- Dr. George Ferguson School
- Glen Elm Community School
- Kitchener Community School
- Thomson Community School
A further expansion of seven schools is also scheduled for March.
Haarmann said that he hopes the program will reach all Regina public schools, at the very least in the form of a fridge. Currently, the focus is on K-8, but down the road, there may be opportunities to spend at secondary schools.
This fridge introduced to Seven Stones Community School last year. It offers snacks for kids to grab whenever they want. (Abby Zieverink/980 CJME)
John Bailey, the food bank’s president and CEO, said this opportunity won’t be a huge change in its procurement, but will open up more avenues to bring in higher-quality and quantity food.
“The biggest change will be how much food we’re actually processing in-house and turning into prepared meals and composed snacks,” Bailey said.
“That will be the increase in our production and operations but we’re well equipped to handle the influx of food, and honestly, as we worked in the lead up to launch, securing new partners for food provision has been part of it, and there’s been a really great uptick from some of our vendor partners in one to support this program.”
The importance of the program is dear to the heart of school board trustee Ted Jaleta, who became emotional as he recounted his own experience with hunger in a refugee camp.
Jaleta, who is originally from Ethiopia, is the Regina School Board trustee for Subdivision 1.
“I was in the same position, that’s why I’m so committed now,” Jaleta said, adding that he volunteers much of his free time helping Regina’s homeless.
“I used to be one of those kids, and it’s just unreal and so sad that in one of the richest countries, with the amount of food that we grow – this shouldn’t be happening,” he said.
– with files from 980 CJME’s Abby Zieverink and Daniel Reech
