New funding is coming to Lunenburg County schools to help combat food insecurity.
The United Way of Lunenburg County has partnered with RootED School Food to provide $60,000 in funding to area schools for new kitchen and cafeteria equipment.
Tiffany Joudrey, director of finance for the South Shore Regional Centre for Education says the funding will help ensure schools have the equipment to feed students at school.
“A lot of our cafeterias in this region are old and having aging equipment,” she said.
“So this funding will be used to replace older dishwashers, replace older cutlery and get new trays for food delivery, now that COVID-19 is in place.”
Those upgrades will be needed to ensure students can be fed while at school to help lower food insecurity, something Nova Scotia leads the boards in across Atlantic Canada.
Joudrey said food insecurity is especially high in the area as many families can’t afford to send students to school with a full lunch.
“It’s a hard thing to track,” she said.
“Unless they are raising their hands and saying, ‘I need food,’ we don’t necessarily know. Right now, the schools help us support the ones we know about, so we are trying to take that pressure off the schools.”
Funding will come over five years with $20,000 being made available this year and $10,000 each subsequent year, and will be available to all schools in Lunenburg County.
