Closing the Summer Nutrition Gap
Why Canada Needs to Invest In Children Year Round
For kids, the last school bell of June also means the last guaranteed meal of the day.
Every school day, millions of children benefit from the stability of a healthy meal at school. But when summer arrives that support disappears along with the progress we’ve made in addressing child food insecurity.
At summerlunch+, we see this gap firsthand. Nearly 1 in 4 Canadian children live in food insecure households, and the summer months are the most vulnerable time of the year. Without access to consistent meals kids and families face:
Decline in physical and mental health
Increased reliance on food banks
Learning gaps
Added household stress and costs for families
These aren’t just personal struggles, they carry long term costs for health care, education and the economy.
A Smart, Preventive Investment
What we’re proposing is a scalable, high-impact summer nutrition program led by summerlunch+ staff. This program will include:
Food kits or grocery cards delivered to families in targeted ridings, maximizing both impact and federal-local alignment
Interactive cooking and nutrition education for children and caregivers, offered in both English and French
Youth Employment opportunities funded through Canada Summer Jobs, providing meaningful summer work experiences for students and Registered Dietitian’s
Community-driven partnerships with local food banks, community centres and food suppliers
Our proposal calls for:
Summer funding of $3.4M in 2026, scaling to $10M in 2027 continually growing to meet the needs of the population
Programs in every federal riding, reaching over 100,000 children and family members
Unit cost of $100 per person, for meal support, cooking and food literacy programming
Delivery through proven partnerships with community organizations, food banks, and Canada Summer Jobs
The Impact
In the summer of 2027, an investment of $10 million will allow summerlunch+
to reach over 100,000 people through our summer lunch program; at a cost of just $100 per person. To put that into perspective, this is only a fraction of the lifetime public expenditures that have been associated with unaddressed childhood food insecurity.
This investment will be used across three key areas of impact:
1. Nationwide Community Partnerships through Foodbanks
Half of the funding will go toward building partnerships with foodbanks across all 343 federal ridings in Canada. This will enable us to reach approximately 50 families per riding, while providing them with $40 meal kits for each of the 8 summer weeks. These kits help ensure participants have access to the food they need while empowering them to prepare the meals at home.
2. Target Support where it’s Needed Most
A quarter of the funding will be used to strengthen efforts and partnerships in communities experiencing the highest demand.
3. Program Design, Delivery, and Summer Students
The final portion of the investment will be allocated to program infrastructures: design, travel, recruitment, technology, monitoring, and evaluation. It will also provide a top up for summer students that help the program run each year.
With this investment, summerlunch+ will:
Deliver over 3 million meals prepared at home
Provide 1.8 million hours of food literacy programming
Create 500–550 Canada Summer Jobs for youth across the country
Strengthen local economies through food partnerships and job creation
Why It Matters
This program provides a, cost-effective strategy with measurable long-term savings that would impact Mandate 3, through bringing down the cost of food for Canadians which will help them get ahead.
Expanding Canada's student nutrition program into the summer will:
Reduce rising health care costs by preventing diet-related illness
Support better education outcomes by reducing summer learning loss
Strengthen the future workforce by supporting children today
Invest in communities through youth employment and local partnerships
A Call to Action
The time to act is now. A modest investment today will deliver great returns for Canada's future. This is not a charity, it is improving preexisting nation building policies that strengthens health, education and economic resilience. By making summer nutrition apriority, Canada can ensure no child is left behind when school ends and no opportunity is lost to build a stronger and healthier country together.
Join us in raising awareness!