New funding will help the Chinook School Division keep their students fed.
The federal and provincial governments signed a new three-year agreement under the National School Food Program.
The school division gets two years' worth of funding this year, or approximately $235,000. They'll get half that next year.
"Our schools will get some additional cash for sure," said Chinook School Division Director of Education Mark Benesh. "Those dollars will go directly to schools to support their nutrition programs because there's a great need there, a bigger need than people really understand."
The additional funding won't eliminate the need for community support.
"The dollars will help accent what they're presently doing," Benesh said. "But we're still counting on the variety of businesses and partners and service groups that support schools because it still won't meet the needs that we have across the division, but it really will help. We're really appreciative of the fact that the province signed on to that agreement and that we'll have those dollars in place at least for the next two years."
The school division knows that nutrition programs are vital in keeping students fed and focused.
"The reality is we have a variety of different economic circumstances across the division," Benesh said. "There's a need when kids just come to school hungry, they don't have a lunch, they aren't prepared, whether that's breakfast or lunch that helps them get through the day, because what we do know is that when we're hungry, we just don't learn in the same manner. It's a distraction. It's a functionality piece that limits our ability to learn and anything that we can do to set students up to be able to learn, that's our goal."
Schools throughout the division have their own nutrition programs like Comp Eats at the SCCHS.