 Our Speaker Tanya Koshowski | Charles Pratt introduced Tanya Koshowski, Executive Director of Brown Bagging for Calgary's Kids. In his introduction, Charles noted that our Major Donations Committee proudly supports BB4K. Ms. Koshowski last presented to the club at our June 19th meeting when the committee presented a $20,000 cheque to BB4K. Ms. Koshowski's presentation touched on the problem of hunger in Calgary's schools, how BB4K works to solve this problem and BB4K's vision for the future. She began by telling the story of nine-year-old Kayla and her younger brother Brad, who told her teacher that they were hungry as there was no food at home. Fortunately, BB4K was already active in her school, and her teacher was quickly able to enroll Kayla and Brad in the program. In another school, Sarah was found eating pure sugar from a plastic bag because there was no other food in her house. These are just two of many surprising stories arising in an affluent, modern city where BB4K has seen dramatic growth in the demand for its services. |
Four years ago, BB4K provided lunches for 2500 hungry children in Calgary schools. That it now provides more than 5000 lunches daily in 228 Calgary schools shows how hunger is a serious and growing problem in our city. BBRK can provide this large volume of lunches at an average cost of $2.00 per lunch because of its strong partnerships with community groups, including our club, and a dedicated team of 650 volunteers, some of whom work out of BB4K's dedicated kitchen in downtown Calgary. It accomplishes all of this with an annual budget of just $2 million.
Ms. Koshowski concluded her presentation by sharing the BB4K vision for the future that sees the community working together to ensure no children go hungry. She told us the previous NDP government had established a budget of $15.4 million to provide nutritious lunches to students in 225 schools across the province, which represents the same size of the population that BB4K serves on its $2 million budget. The current government has allocated $3 million to establish a pilot project to feed hungry children across the province based on a model of community volunteerism. BB4K has submitted a proposal to the government of Alberta to extend the BB4K model to schools in four districts. BB4K believes it has the experience, being the only community-based free lunch program anywhere in Canada, to extend its model across the province. Such an initiative would build naturally on its vision, where the community ensures that no child is prevented by hunger from achieving his or her full potential.
After an informative question and answer session, Kurt Kowalchuck thanked our speaker for her presentation.