Program nourishes kids, body and soul
Summerlunch+ teaches youth about nutrition, much more
Smiling faces, laughter, family and food — a winning combination that can make anyone happy, but for Susan Wright, it was everything she imagined.
After running a pilot program last year that teaches children about healthy eating, Wright brought it back again. This time, it’s the official launch. “I am so grateful,” said Wright. She is the executive director of summerlunch+, a program that aims to feed kids and educate them about nutrition through the summer when school nutrition programs are on break.
School nutrition programs feed more than 170,000 kids a day. Those programs are badly missed in the summer, but Wright says more than the meals are missed. During the summer, all kids experience what’s known as summer learning loss, when kids forget some of what they learned and must learn it all over again in the next school year. Children who live with food insecurity tend to have more summer learning loss, she said.
“Every kid loses a bit,” said Wright. “Summer comes along and those kids don’t have the same sort of nutritional support and educational stimulation that they need to go back to school in September feeling great.”
After working in a school nutrition program that served 500 schools in Ontario, Wright was being asked what else could be done to support these children.
“It occurred to me those kids didn’t have sufficient resources in the summer. I was always being asked if we could do something to support those kids.” She came up with summerlunch+ and teamed up with Racheal Lawrence, manager of child family and youth services at Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office. Lawrence manages five summer camps in Thorncliffe and was ecstatic when Wright approached her with a bid to bring a program to the community.
“We want our communities to be a part of this. We want our families to have access to quality nutritious food. And Susan provides that to them on a day-to-day basis. It’s free. You know, many of our families are coming from low-income back- grounds,” said Lawrence. For Wright, it was the perfect spot. “I knew that Thorncliffe was an amazing community because 30,000 people live in this community and they’re in this tiny geographic region. So I knew there were a lot of kids here,” said Wright.
The camps don’t focus only on food. Kids will also participate in activities, such as arts and crafts. Along with this, they will be going to educational places in the city such as the Royal Ontario Museum and the Ontario Science Centre. For details, visit summerlunchplus.com.