More school kids in Toronto are going hungry. Here’s how the city could help.

This discussion was follow up to an earlier City Council decision which requested Dr. de Villa to report back to the Executive Committee on the financing needed to deliver additional student nutrition programs by January 2025.

Dr. de Villa said that funding these additional programs for the remainder of the 2024-2025 school year is an estimated $2.2 million. Funding for an entire school year on an ongoing basis is an estimated $3.9 million. She also shared that an additional one billion dollars budgeted over five years from the Federal School Food Infrastructure Fund in 2024 would help cover the expansion of the School Nutrition Program in Toronto.

Susan Wright, founder of Summerlunch+, spoke about a gap in the program: supporting children in the summertime. She added that isolation and inactivity during the summer can create loneliness and missed opportunities for development. Wright asked for the city to invest in Summerlunch+ which includes meals and cooking lessons for kids throughout the  summer.  

Stella Kargiannakis, a former city councillor candidate for Ward 17 Don Valley North, expressed her concerns about the Student Nutrition Program. She stated that feeding children is a parental responsibility, not a governmental one. She added that the city should focus more on increasing wages for workers as opposed to having people rely on the government for food subsidies. 

What were the outcomes of the discussions? 

The Committee decided to request Paul Johnson, the City Manager, to ensure that a future report on the expansion of the student nutrition program include potential partnerships with existing child and youth nutrition initiatives outside of the school year such as Wright’s Summerlunch+ non-profit. 

What does our Documenter have to say? 

Working at the Fort York Food Bank (FYFB), I see kids the most during the summer when the number of children coming along with their parents noticeably increases.  

During the school year, parents have some relief from providing all the meals of the day as many schools in the city already have some form of student nutrition program in place. They also have the opportunity to have their children in government-funded child-care programs, and thus don’t have to bring them with them to the food bank (even though it’s a great pleasure seeing the joy on kids' faces when I give them extra juice boxes, sweets or makeshift activities for them to feel welcomed.)

The 2023 “Who's Hungry” report from Daily Bread, the parent organization to Toronto’s food banks, shows that child hunger is on the rise. From 2022 to 2023, there was a 62% increase in the number of food bank clients who are under 18.  The rise of child hunger and the gap in summer programming highlights the importance of expanding the Student Nutrition Program.