Weekend fundraiser helps feed more than 8,000 BC students
Posted September 17, 2017 9:25 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
COQUITLAM (NEWS 1130) – It’s a sobering statistic: one-in-five students goes to school hungry and with classes underway across the country, the importance of breakfast is once again being stressed.
One of many schools in BC benefiting from this weekend’s fundraiser for the Breakfast Club of Canada is in Coquitlam. Up to 80 of the more than 400 students currently enrolled at Ecole Maillard comes to class on an empty stomach.
Principal Mark Clay says the middle school with kids aged 11 to 14 has been involved since 2012 and the benefits are obvious.
“Not only does it provide a nutritious breakfast and an opportunity for students of all sorts of shapes and sizes to be able to have a good meal — a good breakfast to start the day — it also provides some community-building around the table and around having a good, solid breakfast.”
He adds the program is open to everyone on a daily basis. “Students who may have had a bite at home, their first bite [is] at 6 a.m. [and at] 8:15 a.m. they’re still hungry. These kids are growing. They’re developing [and] they’re eating all the time. Lots of kids participate… we have our band program that starts at 7:15 a.m. [and] very often, those students will get out of band, race to the breakfast program and grab a bite before they head to class.”
This weekend’s Start Me Up campaign includes companies like COBS Bread donating a $1 from every loaf sold, which is enough to cover a meal.
About 110 schools are currently on the wait-list to join the non-profit program founded in 1994.
