This Giving Tuesday donate to support children's food literacy!
What is Giving Tuesday?
Giving Tuesday is an international movement encouraging folks to do good in their local communities or around the world. After the hustle and bustle of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday is a day all about transforming communities and giving back!
What we do
Our mission at summerlunch+ is to teach nutrition and food literacy, and equip children with food skills, through virtual and hands-on learning experiences to nurture healthy behaviours that will last a lifetime. This year we have reached 250 children and provided 624 meal kits by providing 10,000 servings of fresh food to school aged children. Throughout our program, children are empowered with nutrition knowledge and the skills to make informed choices about the food they eat.
Why it matters
Building food skills, nutrition literacy and healthy habits in childhood develops life-long healthy behaviours that positively impact health outcomes. As the practice of home cooking is declining and rarely taught in school, summerlunch+ fills that gap through hands-on learning. In 2021, 1 in 5 Canadian children lived in households that experienced some level of food insecurity (1). We have supplemented our program to have it accessible to all by providing the ingredients necessary to participate. The 8-week program provides children with essential food skills, nutrition knowledge, food access, improves mental health and wellbeing, and strengthens their social connections. By participating in positive social interactions throughout the program, children learn more than just food skills! They develop patience, better focus during tasks, a healthy relationship with food and improved mental wellbeing. Families greatly value our program after seeing the positive changes in their children from helping with meal preparation, giving them more confidence in the kitchen and their new knowledge of nutrition and food waste.
Here’s what one family had to say:
"I think it gave her confidence and taught her some new skills. I saw how happy she was to start something finish and then offer it to the family and they raved about it and gave her lots of compliments. And that did a lot for her self-esteem...o, she was trying foods that she would never have tried before. She even remade some of the recipes to take to family functions and so it's given her a lot of positive things." — Community member from the summerlunch+ x SickKids program
How you can help
The collaborative efforts from community partners and donors are key to helping us to reach our goal of teaching and feeding more children. Every donation helps us improve our programs and reach more and more children. Every $35 donated provides 1 child with a meal kit full of fresh ingredients and gives them the opportunity to participate in one week of the program. This Giving Tuesday support the children in nearby communities by allowing them to participate in a program that will give them the tools they need to flourish and encourage healthy eating patterns that will pave the way for a healthier future through food.
References:
(1) Tarasuk V, Li T, Fafard St-Germain AA. (2022) Household food insecurity in Canada, 2021. Toronto: Research to identify policy options to reduce food insecurity (PROOF). Retrieved from https://proof.utoronto.ca/