By Taylor MacPherson

New program provides lunches for P.A. students

Dec 5, 2016 | 11:00 AM

All elementary students at the Saskatchewan Rivers Public School Division will have a balanced lunch available to them, thanks to a new venture called Feeding our Future.

A partnership between the school division, Prince Albert Co-op, Lakeland Ford and Lakeland Hyundai, Feeding our Future intends to deliver 950 balanced lunches to P.A. elementary schools every week for emergency lunch programs. The first shipment of lunches was loaded for delivery this morning at the P.A. Co-op Marketplace.

Scott Newsom, managing partner at Lakeland Ford and Lakeland Hyundai, said he started thinking about lunch programs after his wife met a young boy crying outside a grocery store.

“She asked him what was wrong, and he said ‘I don’t have a lunch,’” Newsom said.

After his wife bought lunch for the boy, Newsom said they realized the problem must be bigger than just one child.

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“She thought there’s got to be an issue out there above and beyond this little boy sitting on a picnic table crying. So she asked me, ‘is there something we can do?’”

“We need a program like this in place,” Kent Arpin, principal of Princess Margaret Public School, said. “There’s so many students that, on a daily basis, come without lunches.”

Arpin estimated 300 students in the division arrive without a lunch every day. Schools try to provide emergency lunches whenever possible, Arpin said, but budget restrictions make it difficult to provide for every student in need.

“Lakeland and the Co-op have stepped up and made sure that’s something that’s going to be taken care of,” he said.

P.A. Co-op CEO Dean McKim said he was excited about the opportunity when Newsom called with the proposal.

“We didn’t even think about it. Absolutely we said we were going to be involved,” McKim said.

McKim said he was surprised to learn how many students in P.A. were in need of nutritious lunches, but Co-op was happy to help.

“I think it just falls in line exactly with the cooperative spirit and helping our community, so we’re very excited to be part of this partnership,” McKim said.

The students fed by the program will receive a nutritious and balanced lunch, McKim said, including a meat and cheese sandwich, fruit, juice box and yogurt.

Newsom said there are plans to expand the Feeding our Future program to Catholic schools as well as public, in order to ensure every child has access to a nutritious lunch.

“We’ve been in talks with a third community partner,” Newsom said. “Our intention is to be rolling out a similar program with the Catholic School Division in January.

Taylor.macpherson@jpbg.ca

@TMacPhersonNews