Peterborough Increases Local Food in Student Nutrition Programs
Posted: March 10, 2014
Categories: Edible Education Network / Food in the News / Food in the News / Good Food Ideas for Kids / GoodFoodBites / Local Procurement / Schools
Peterborough students will be discovering more local food on their breakfast plates this year as a result of an exciting new project, Increasing Local Food in Student Nutrition Programs. Thanks to funding and support from the Greenbelt Fund and the Ontario government, the project lead, Peterborough County-City Health Unit, will work with Food For Kids Peterborough, Farms at Work, and YWCA of Peterborough Haliburton to increase procurement of locally grown food and to boost food literacy in the classroom.
The $20,000 project aims to create new markets for at least five local farmers. Innovatively, food will be sourced using the Farms at Work (a project of Tides Canada Initiatives) online system Find Local Food. Farms at Work will also be bringing farmers into schools to talk to students about where their food comes from.
One of this project’s strengths lies in the formation of multiple local partnerships. Building on Food for Kids Peterborough’s 20 years of success sending students to class well nourished and ready to learn, the project will connect local food to the curriculum in the 47 schools which already run student nutrition programs. Food for Kids, a non-profit community partnership, is supported by The Student Nutrition Program of Central Eastern Ontario, a provincially led, regionally directed initiative, funded by the provincial Ministry of Children and Youth Services.
The Honourable Jeff Leal Minister of Rural Affairs and MPP for Peterborough, Burkhard Mausberg Greenbelt Fund CEO, and Dr. Rosana Pellizzari Medical Officer of Health for the Peterborough County-City Health Unit, serve up local food to kids at St. John Catholic Elementary School in Peterborough.
For a more information about the Greenbelt Fund’s Regional Food Grant Program, please visit Ontariofresh.ca.
For more information about the Ontario government’s Local Food Act and broader local food strategy, visit the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food website.