Submitted by Christ Church, Lion’s Head
In the season of fall, when thanksgiving is all around us, the community of Christ Church Lion’s Head made a decision to share our thanksgiving with the Bruce Peninsula District School’s nutrition program.
Our community is blessed with wonderful teachers and staff who work together so that no child, no student, needs to go hungry when they are at school. When COVID hit, the buffet-style breakfast had to be discontinued. So the school began to put a daily food bin in every class from JK to Grade 12 containing prepackaged breakfast items so that students can help themselves. Teachers are saying that almost every student is taking something to eat. In the afternoon, they have fresh fruit in the hallways for students who are feeling hungry after lunch.
Since the BPDS lacks funding to run the cafeteria, they no longer have a permanent subsidized lunch program. However, they are aware that with the fire at Hellyer’s Foodland, students who bought their lunch there don’t have options for buying an affordable lunch. In response, the school began a $5 lunch for secondary students. With the cost of groceries being what they are, the amounts collected don’t always cover the cost of the food, so they are supplementing this through the nutrition program as needed.
For younger students who may come to school without a lunch the teachers work behind the scenes to make sure every child has something to eat.
This work is carried out under the umbrella of the Ontario Student Nutrition Program and receives funding from the Program. But the school relies heavily on fundraising and community donations in order to provide the much-needed food. Any funds remaining in the school nutrition program at the end of a school budget year are carried forward from year to year. We give thanks for everyone: teachers, donors and staff, who help to ensure that every child who is hungry, is fed.
In our church community there are those who do the loving work of visiting others who may be sick, lonely, elderly or unable to readily get around. This kind of visiting is in response to our faith, our call to love others and part of our discipleship. In some sense one might consider our discipleship work as “volunteer hours”, not to be measured or budgeted per se, but none the less worthy of being recognized. It was out of recognition and a deep sense of gratitude for this work, and the work of the BPDS teaches and staff, that Christ Church decided to make a gift to the school’s nutrition program.
May this gift of love bless the children and in turn the wider community.
