Expanding a hot breakfast program at Monetville Public School
Posted: July 5, 2026
Categories: nourish to flourish
Monetville Public School is a small rural school in a fairly remote community. We currently have 98 students from surrounding communities, including the French River area and Dokis First Nation. We have 6 classrooms which include students from junior kindergarten to grade 8, all of whom are involved in our sustainable gardening projects and who benefit from our breakfast and snack programs. We have been a platinum ecoschool for 7 years now and have truly enjoyed making sustainable foods a part of our daily programming here. We have expanded in recent years to include composting for our gardens as well. Next year, we hope to plant more crops around our outlying property so that we can grow pumpkins for every student and provide food for our fall feast that we share with parents and community members.
This year, our “nourish to flourish” grant provided us with the ability to expand our breakfast program to serve hot foods to the entire school. We purchased rolling warming carts, serving carts and steam trays to be able to safely provide hot breakfast and hot snacks to our students each and every day. This program has impacted all of our students daily in a very positive way. We are aware that not all of our students come to school having had a healthy breakfast, and on occasion, they do not have a packed lunch either. With our expanded breakfast and snack programs, we can be sure they are well fed and ready to learn.
In the future, we are looking to serve more of our own grown-on-site foods and to connect with more local farms to provide sustainable food for which we know the origin.
“Gardening and providing locally sourced foods have become a priority at our school. It is an essential skill that we feel all students need to learn, and that our staff are happy to provide,” said Colleen McKinnon, the special education teacher and head of the grant program. Some of our program superstars for this initiative are our educational assistants, morning volunteers, and our school administrative assistant, Simone Turner, who helps our staff serve a hot breakfast daily and greets every student with a smile to start the day off right. We also appreciate the support that we have received from our principals, Shannon Lafrance and Kim Yagnych. Thank you to all who made this possible for our little school with a big heart!