After the Bell feeds kids in summer

When school is over in June, children go home for two months of family time. Hopefully they get to play outside in the park, go camping and swimming, and have the summer adventures that makes being a kid so much fun.

But for over 300,000 children in Canada, it could be a summer when they miss school - because they miss the breakfasts and lunches they get to eat there.

This is why Food Banks Canada created the “After the Bell” program.

The Food Banks Canada After The Bell program is dedicated to ending child hunger. With school nutrition programs ending in the summer months, After the Bell aims to fill the gap.

The goal of After the Bell is to provide child-friendly, healthy food packs to food banks to distribute to kids experiencing hunger throughout Canada. This year, Red Deer Food Bank was pleased to be one of those able to be part of this program.

Through our regular hamper distribution system, we distributed 1,400 healthy food packs to children in Red Deer. Given that we served nearly 1,550 children under the age of 18 in the months of July and August, this program truly was appreciated, and needed, by families in our community.

What’s in an After the Bell food pack?

The kid-friendly food packs included items that children typically enjoy, like oatmeal packets and granola bars, peanut butter packets and shelf-stable hummus and crackers. Additionally, funds were provided to add fresh food such as apples, pears, berries, carrots and cucumbers, depending on season and availability.

Because we distributed the healthy food packs through our hamper distribution program, we knew we were putting these nutritious food items into the homes of children who needed it most.

It takes a village

The After the Bell program is generously supported by Food Banks Canada’s corporate partners who them in their mission to put an end to child hunger. Nearly 30 corporate agencies and foundations partnered with Food Banks Canada to ensure that 175,000 food packs were filled and distributed to participating food bank programs throughout the country to help keep kids from going hungry.

The efforts and contributions of Food Banks Canada and its partners to ensure children are fed further illustrates the importance for all of us - corporations, small- and medium-businesses, and individuals - to come forward as community members to ensure that everybody eats.

The need continues

The percentage of children accessing food banks is far overrepresented compared to their share of the population. Nationally, children under 18 represent 33.3% of the food bank population, but only make up 19.1% of Canada’s general population. (Source: HungerCount) Locally, in the first eight months of 2022 Red Deer Food Bank saw an average of a 55.5% increase of children needing food as compared to 2021.

With inflation continuing to rise along with heating fuel costs increasing, the winter months ahead look to be particularly demanding on Food Bank resources. Red Deer Food Bank will be especially active in the last quarter of the year to increase the awareness of the need in the community, and going into 2023 with even more initiatives to help alleviate hunger in the community.