Half of a tangerine instead of a whole one, half of a hard-boiled egg or an apple cut six ways — student nutrition programs across Ontario are finding ways to stretch increasingly insufficient dollars.
The province needs to double funding for such initiatives, and even that may not meet the rising demand those programs are seeing, student nutrition programs and advocates told the government ahead of the spring budget.
"Student nutrition programs are becoming something that families need to lean on, and oftentimes lean on heavily, as a solution to the fact that they simply cannot afford their groceries, full stop," she said in an interview. "So we know that when a student who maybe doesn't have a critical need for the food that's in the classroom reaches for it, it sort of levels the playing field and gives any students that social permission to go ahead and take what they need without judgment."
Danielle Findlay, supervisor of community relations for the Ontario Student Nutrition Program Southwest Region, told the committee that in her area, their portion of the $5 million in funding meant $4.29 for each participating student for the entire school year. One healthy snack costs $1.50 on average, Student Nutrition Ontario estimates.
A spokesperson for Community, Children and Social Services Minister Michael Parsa pointed in a statement to the province's one-time investments and said he continues to wait for more details of a federal pledge to build a Canada-wide student nutrition program.