(L-R top) RDPSD Board Trustee Dianne Macaulay; Byron Bradley, Senior Director of Development and Government Relations for the Mustard Seed; Barb Bosch, Food Services Supervisor at the Mustard Seed; Laura Giesbrecht, Senior Director of Food Services for the Mustard Seed; Nicole Buchanan, RDPSD Board Chair, presenting the $40,000 donation with two students from Aspen Heights Elementary School on Tuesday. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

By Alessia Proietti

Will supply over 10,000 lunches

Red Deer Public Schools donates $40,000 to the Mustard Seed’s school lunch program

Oct 17, 2023 | 2:11 PM

In front of a gymnasium filled with bright-eyed young students, the Red Deer Public Schools Division (RDPSD) presented a cheque to the Mustard Seed on Tuesday, donating $40,000 to their school lunch program.

“Imagine coming to school every day without food because there isn’t enough food at home. Children should never have to worry about where their next meal will come from,” said RDPSD officials in a release.

Nicole Buchanan, RDPSD Board Chair, explained that their Division received $250,000 in nutritional funding from Alberta Education for their various breakfast and lunch programs, distributed to all students across their 22 schools.

After allocating enough funds to meet their demand, they say they felt it was necessary to donate the remaining amount to the Mustard Seed who also impact the lives of children across the community.

“Our board and our school division have recognized that kids actually don’t learn if they are coming to school with an empty stomach; hence, we saw and recognize that it’s really important to provide a nutritious meal to our students so they have the ability to learn the best that they possibly can throughout their school day,” she said to the students at Aspen Heights Elementary School (5969 69 St.).

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The entire Aspen Heights Elementary School gathered in the gymnasium to hear the announcement on Tuesday. (rdnewsNOW/Alessia Proietti)

Byron Bradley, Senior Director of Development and Government Relations for the Mustard Seed, said while the organization has been in Red Deer for seven years, the initial school lunch program started 20 years ago with a couple of volunteers who saw a need and made lunches from their house.

He says the real angels still today are the volunteers, giving 9,000 hours of their time last year, with some preparing from 5:30 a.m. during school days to make fresh lunches.

In the 2022-23 school year, the Seed served 94,744 lunches to students in Red Deer’s three school districts as well as six surrounding communities. They say this is 16,000 more lunches compared to the year prior, with 267 of those lunches served to students in 17 RDPSD schools.

Bradly says the demand is increasing from 15-20 per cent year over year, due partially to the cost of living, fuel, groceries, and inflation hitting families hard.

“We are actually seeing a lot of new people across our centres in Western Canada coming to our doors that we’ve never seen before and schools are also seeing kids showing up to school on empty stomachs that typically didn’t,” he said.

Bradley says the donation will supply over 10,000 lunches to students. With each lunch costing around $4 for the organization, he says the program last year cost around $350,000 for central Alberta alone.

He says he hopes the students listening to the announcement walk away knowing that the community loves and is there for them.

“If there are children here today that are one of those kids that do receive one of our lunches, that [they know] somebody cares for them,” he said.

He hopes that they feel inspired to also help a neighbour in need.

“Kids will share stories with us and write thank you cards and sometimes you’ll hear about how they also give back and they’ll maybe share something from their lunch if they have something extra,” he said. “We hope that they would also follow suit and just care for people around them in their community as well and their schools.”