Photo courtesy onexone.org
A new program in northern Saskatchewan is hoping kids will no longer come to school hungry.
Four schools across the north have introduced a new breakfast program.
Schools in Fond du Lac, Stony Rapids, Black Lake and Uranium City are now using ONE-X-ONE’s (one-by-one) First Nations School Breakfast Program.
The national program aims to provide daily breakfasts to school age children for $1 per child per day.
The new initiative comes about after Athabasca Basin Development partnered with ONEXONE to donate $80,000 to kick-start the program.
“We saw that ONEXONE was doing great work in providing an excellent and sustainable breakfast program in First Nations across the country,” says Geoff Gay, CEO of Athabasca Basin Development in a media release. “And since there was strong interest from the Athabasca communities in having breakfast programs in their schools, we saw this as a natural fit for our donations program.”
“We are excited to launch these breakfast programs in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca region,” says ONEXONE founder Joelle Berdugo Adler in a media release. “First Nations children suffer the greatest levels of poverty among all children in Canada.”
The program has been running for one month at Ben McIntyre School in Uranium City.
School principal Douglas Preikschat says the program has given his students the opportunity to not only learn together, but to also sit down and enjoy a meal together.
“The kids really enjoy the homemade breakfasts every school day,” says Priekschat. “Eggs and fresh fruit are a welcome nutritious treat in an isolated northern community like ours.”
ONEXONE currently runs in 35 different schools across Canada.
The program is open to any school with First Nations students depending on acceptance and funding.