Students at Immaculate Conception Catholic School in downtown Windsor will soon be eating healthy, hot meals twice a week thanks to a partnership between St. Clair College's Research and Innovation department and a collection of other community groups.
The school lunch program will take place Tuesdays and Thursdays at Immaculate Conception starting in January and lasting for three months, allowing students to participate in food literacy lessons while receiving healthy, catered lunches.
"To me, this is just amazing," Principal Heather Best said of the partnership behind the program.
"Kids are coming here to learn, so we have to fuel their bodies to learn," said Best. "No child goes hungry here at this school. And so, to have a child sitting in a class trying to do math, trying to learn to read and write and not be not being nourished and not have any fuel in their body is detrimental to their academic success."
In 2022, St. Clair College received an NSERC College and Community Social Innovation Fund grant to support the School Nutrition Project, in partnership with VON's Ontario Student Nutrition Program, AgScape, United Way, the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board, and Green Heart Kitchen.
"The project aims to enhance school nutrition programs in Windsor-Essex by improving food delivery, food literacy, and childhood health, while addressing hunger as a barrier to learning," said David Potocek, a Research Project Manager at St. Clair College's Research and Innovation department.
Students and their families were invited to Immaculate Conception's gymnasium for a school social night on Thursday, Dec. 5, where they received an opportunity to taste the various meals being offered through the program. Five different serving stations were set up around the gym, featuring options like butter chicken, tuna casserole, chicken cacciatore, whitefish tacos and vegetable chow mein.
Volunteers serve up menu items for a new food program to a student at Immaculate Conception Catholic School on Dec. 5, 2024. (Rich Garton/St. Clair College)
Each family was given a "food passport" so they could provide immediate feedback and vote on whether the kids enjoyed the meals. The feedback will be used to finalize the food menu when the program starts in the New Year.
"We wanted to make sure that the menu that's being prepared is something that our families, our students, will eat and that they'll enjoy," Best said, noting the school community is very diverse and different cultural needs need to be considered in the creation of the menu. "We also want students to see themselves in our school, whether it be resources we use in the classroom or the food that's provided, and even open up their minds to different kinds of foods that they maybe haven't tasted."
Principal Best also points to the educational component, where students are establishing healthy eating habits they can take home to their families.
"Being able to help them along the way by helping feed them is wonderful thing, because being able to eat healthy is a life skill," she said. "These children are going to have families of their own someday and have to make sure they keep their families healthy too."
Researchers at St. Clair are proud to help facilitate this community partnership and are enthusiastic that the success of the tasting event will translate into a fruitful program delivery, come January.
"It was wonderful to see such strong commitment and enthusiasm from the school staff and families in support the school lunch program," said Potocek. "The excitement and positive feedback for the new, nutritious food was truly heartwarming and made for a fantastic evening."
