TORONTO -- As schools across Canada reopen this week, advocates say there are concerns over the lack of food programs and breakfast clubs planned for students.
Gita Madan, a Toronto high school teacher, created the program ‘Food for Thought’ when schools closed in March due to the novel coronavirus to provide children affected by food insecurity with fresh produce while at home.
Now, with limited plans in place for food programs to resume as children head back to school, Madan says many of these students will return to the classroom hungry.
"Many of our students rely on the school food programs in order to eat and have food every day," Madan said in an interview on Tuesday.
Madan explained that before the pandemic, school food programs in Toronto served over 200,000 meals per day to students within their schools
"Even before the pandemic, one in eight families in Canada and one in five in Toronto -- and that rate is much higher for Black and Indigenous families -- are food insecure meaning they don't have daily access to healthy fresh affordable food so those conditions have only been worsened with the pandemic," she said.
According to Breakfast Club of Canada, more than one million children across the country were going to school on an empty stomach before COVID-19. Now, the club is forecasting a drastic increase to over two million for this school year.
"It's so difficult... Students need to eat, and have basic needs met in order for learning conditions to exist so students that aren't eating enough food or who are going hungry are having a really hard time learning in school," Madan said.
Madan's 'Food for Thought' program consisted of 140 volunteers, who drove boxes all around Toronto for families struggling with food security. In total, the program delivered more than 7,000 boxes of food but Madan said it’s not enough.
"The concern is that there are so many families who are constantly at the brink of survival," Madan said. "And lots of families that are going hungry, we could only meet some of the demand that existed throughout the pandemic but there are so many people that are struggling right now."
Madan said the program came to an end last week because it was an emergency relief program that was only in place while children were out of school.
"We started this program in order to just fill a gap that the government wasn't filling in order to support some of our students during the pandemic," Madan said.
She added that her involvement in the project has highlighted the need for food security that exists across the city and the larger demands that exist across the province for social justice.
"We know the underlying issues of food insecurity are much more structural issues around families not having income support, and decent work, fair wages, safe working conditions and people need basic survival support in order to live," Madan said.
She explained that some families may not be able to provide healthy food for their children because of other socioeconomic factors at play, including affordable housing, job security, paid sick days and access to child care and health care.
"The concerns are that food insecurities and huge enormous issue in the city, but underlying it are a lot of structural concerns that cannot be resolved by school nutrition programs or emergency relief programs like what we were running with 'Food for Thought'," Madan said.
For those looking to help, Madan said Canadians need to collectively address those societal issues.
"People who want to support really need to look at what are the underlying issues that are causing food insecurity in our city and who are the people in organizations working on this right now," she said.
Madan said there is “far more demand and need” for food security than what her 'Food for Thought' program was able to address and expects more children will go to school hungry as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
"We're really concerned about how our students are going to fare in this upcoming school year and we don't know how school nutrition programs are going to run or if they're going to run considering COVID and what the plans are for back to school at this point," she said.
As schools prepare to open with new safety measures in place, Breakfast Club of Canada says it has had to adapt how it provides food for students in need. Some of the changes include fewer volunteers and serving breakfast to students directly in the classroom or as pre-made, boxed meals.
However, with the club expecting an increase in the number of children who need help, organizers say they also need financial support from local partners, schools, companies, and communities to be able to deliver their food programs in new ways.
With additional support from Canadians, Madan worries food school programs may not provide enough help to those in need.
"This is something that… was an issue for a lot of our students before the pandemic even happened so of course we're very, very nervous about what this is going to look like now that there's been so much job loss and income insecurity throughout the pandemic," she said.