More Calgary kids going to school hungry

As the price of just about everything continues to climb, more students are heading back to school hungry this year.

Calgary parents are back to packing school lunches this week, and while it may seem like a chore for many, for many others it’s a luxury they can’t afford.

According to Bethany Ross with Brown Bagging for Kids, school food programs are in higher demand than ever before.

“The latest information from Statistics Canada tells us that one in four kids in Alberta, one in four kids in Calgary, lives in a household that experienced food insecurity in the last 12 months, which is an incredibly large number of kids,” she said.

The 600 volunteers at the charity are busy packing lunches for 6,500 students at schools across the city.

“‘[We have] 30 kitchens located across the city where volunteers gather to prepare lunches for kids in schools and those look like a sandwich with some protein, some fruits, some veggies and a snack and we send yogurt or cheese strings a couple days a week,” Ross said. “We make a lot of those lunches so we’ve got volunteers every morning and a couple afternoons a week.”

The latest Raising Canada Report, shows that approximately 1.8 million children under the age of 18 were affected by food insecurity in 2022 — an increase from 1.4 million in 2021.

Brown Bagging has different initiatives to connect kids to the food they need, Ross explains, though one of the biggest is the in-school lunch program, which ensures children have access to the food they need while in school.

The charity has also partnered with another initiative to make even more of a difference to Calgary kids.

“We are running a campaign right now where folks who make a donation in the month of September will have that matched by our friends at the Matt Rumpel Family Foundation, which is a great way to double your impact,” Ross said.

For more information of the work of Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids, visit bb4ck.org