As the challenge of food insecurity grows for many families, one group in Kingston is looking to get as many kids as they can access to hot, nutritious meals, and doing it out of a school cafeteria that has sat dormant for years. The Food Sharing Project is an organization in Kingston which has been providing free, nutritious food to students in schools. Recently, it expanded its supports to provide a new program called ‘Lunch is Ready’, which makes hot lunches for kids. Earlier this month, the group began using the cafeteria kitchen Regiopolis-Notre Dame Catholic High School, which has sat unused for years. Suszane Neimanis, the food hub lead for the location, and says the group put a focus on creating nutrient-dense, rich meals for the elementary and high school students who sign up to the program. “Today is the mac and cheese that has the addition of some squash in it, which has become a favourite,” said Neimanis on Friday. “We’re doing something very different than this physical space is actually used to. It’s been fun.” Board Chair Brenda Moore says several school cafeteria kitchens in Kingston shut down during the pandemic and never reopened because it wasn’t financially viable. “We started having conversations with school boards to say, could we use those kitchens to prepare food for schools,” says Moore. She says for decades, the Food Sharing Project has provided in-school breakfast, lunch and hearty snack programs to schools and students, but had wanted to expand that program to include hot, nutritious lunches. “We have been hearing so much about how hungry kids are at school, about how school coordinators are having to increase their orders every week because the kids are eating everything that they put out and that kids are looking for something more,” she said in an interview with CTV News Ottawa. More than 1,500 lunches are being made at Regiopolis-Notre Dame each week. Those lunches are then served at the high school and are shipped out to nearby elementary schools, explains Moore. She says the school and the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board donated the space, as well as the deep cleaning it needed to be up and ready, while the Food Sharing Project took on the costs of upgrading things like the gas range. The ‘Lunch is Ready’ program officially launched last year, after the Food Sharing Project received a federal grant. This marks the second location where meals are prepared. The first location, inside the new LiUNA Local 183 construction union facility in north Kingston, opened in March 2025. While the cost is free for students, parents who sign up their kids have the option to pay a low-cost to participate. One in four families are facing food insecurity in the Kingston area, said Moore, and new students are signing up all the time. Noor-Ul-Huda is the student nutrition program coordinator with the Food Sharing Project. She says the students get a main protein, as well as a side like fresh fruits and milk, which can also encourage students to try things they may not have at home. “Feeding students nutritious food and making sure they’re engaged in school and giving them the nourishment they need to learn and grow,” Ul-Huda says. “So, we’re very happy to be doing that.” Regiopolis-Notre Dame Catholic High School Principal Amy Goodberry says the school was happy to have the organization work out of the school grounds. She explains it was chosen because of its proximity to other schools. “There’s more community being built in the cafeteria as well amongst students,” she said. “So, giving kids the opportunity to explore nutritious things, try new things, take risks. It’s really important to ensure that students are fed, so they’re successful.”
