More children and youth in Delta and other school districts will have access to healthy meals and snacks at school through the province’s new Feeding Futures funding, which invests in building and expanding local school food programs.
The province is investing $214 million over three years so school districts can create or expand local food programs. The funds will be used for purchasing food and hiring dedicated staff to co-ordinate providing meals and snacks to students.
The Delta School District has already had very active food security programs with most schools offering a grab-and-go option, feeding kids as needed, while the Delta Firefighter's Charitable Society's Healthy Snack Program serves approximately 1,300 students across the school district. Funding is also in place for food security programs for Indigenous Education.
Breakfast programs are at McCloskey, Annieville, Chalmers and Hellings elementary schools.
The school district also has two well-utilized Starfish programs, one in North Delta run by the Rotary Club and another in South Delta run by South Delta Baptist Church.
Both programs are volunteer-run and currently see 125 food packs distributed per week in North Delta and 32 packs distributed per week in South Delta.
As far as the one-time, $1.5 million Student and Family Affordability funding, which Delta received for the 2022/23 school year from the province, part of that funding was directed to support the Starfish Program and the Firefighters Healthy Snack Program. Some of the funding was also used to purchase grocery gift cards for students and families of need to help ensure students have access to healthy food outside of school hours.
Other family assistance supported by the funding included school fees, clothing, footwear, planners/agendas, general school supplies and band books.
The funding has helped more than 2,000 students, said Cathryn Tucker, Director of Communications for the Delta School District.
“The new Feeding Futures funding that was announced yesterday will build on the progress of this year’s one-time Student and Family Affordability Fund and is great news for families,” she said.
