THUNDER BAY – NEWS – The ‘Grains for Healthy Brains’ Cereal Drive hopes to collect boxes of hot and cold cereal to support school nutrition programs in Thunder Bay and the district. The Red Cross Student Nutrition Program provides funding to schools to operate free breakfast, lunch, or snack programs to promote nutritious food, encourage positive eating habits and attend school ready to learn.
Schools will be collecting cereal from Monday September 21st – Friday September 25th; the cereal they collect for their school will stay at their school.
The Red Cross Student Nutrition Program will also be hosting a Community Day at Metro on Arthur and James Street on Saturday, September 26th to promote the program and collect more boxes for the schools. The boxes collected from the Community Day will be distributed to schools in Thunder Bay and District.
“Our goal for the Cereal Drive is to collect 1000 boxes of hot and cold cereal between participating schools and the Community Day. This will be the first time the Student Nutrition Program has run a Cereal Drive; we are hoping it will be successful so we can continue to do this as an annual drive for our schools. The money the schools receive for their nutrition program will not cover all the costs for the whole year; we hope to help alleviate some of the cost with donated cereal.” Rebecca Snyder, Community Development Coordinator- Student Nutrition Program.
“It’s been demonstrated that when a child has a nutritious breakfast they attend school ready to learn. Though we provide funding to get Student Nutrition Programs off the ground, they really are community owned and operated initiatives. Community drives like this can be a big part of the success of these programs.” Andrena Toth, Lead Coordinator, Student Nutrition Program.