‘Since we started our intensive breakfast program last year, we’ve seen a steady increase in the number of students wanting to come to school in the morning.’

With more students than ever finding their way to Fraserview Learning Centre, it’s a bad time for this alternative school on 7th Avenue to be suffering a funding crisis for its breakfast and lunch programs.

Those food programs are essential for students to thrive, said Kirsten Leigh Castonguay, a youth care worker.

A surge in food and housing costs, and aftershocks of the pandemic, have contributed to a steep decline in donations to the school.

“We used to get a lot of funding from the community but now with everything going on in the world we have had to take a step back and partners have to take a step back from us as well and are supporting other needs, and we’ve lost a lot of funding,” she explained.

The provincial government’s Feeding Futures money that was available last year has gone, too, with those funds being channeled to elementary schools, she said.

Being able to offer breakfast and lunch to students — the most vulnerable and at-risk in the district, many of whom arrive hungry with no food for the day — is necessary ensure success in school, she said.

In an application to the Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School program for $20,000 to feed and provide clothes and other necessities for the school’s 120 students, Castonguay said youth attending alternative education schools in B.C. are often the most vulnerable in the school system.

Alternative schools receive “a disproportionate number of children and youth in care …children and youth living in poverty or on the street … involved in drugs, alcohol, gang related activities, the sex trade and youth with mental health designations,” she said.

“Alternate education programs offer an opportunity for these vulnerable and at-risk students to experience success… our students often have multiple obstacles to overcome before they are able to sit down and learn.

“One of the most common we encounter is hunger, which luckily is often one of the easiest to overcome given we have the funding to do so.”

“Last year, we had generous donations and were able to run a successful breakfast program. This year it has been drastically scaled back. We would also like to offer lunch on a more constant basis,” she continued.

“Our program is already successful. We have seen a steady increase of graduating students over the 11 years we have been in operation. Since we started our intensive breakfast program last year, we’ve seen a steady increase in the number of students wanting to come to school in the morning.”

Quoting from an article in Pediatrics & Child Health, she said food insecurity could lead to “reduced leaning, depression, and suicidal ideation, higher rates of adolescent mood behaviour, substance abuse disorders, and a high risk of obesity.”

She said the 2023 B.C. Adolescent Health Survey indicated an increase in mental health issues in youth: anxiety disorders, panic attacks, depression, PTSD and ADHD, as well as an increase over previous years in the number of students with self-injurious behaviour and suicidal ideation.

As well as food, a quarter of students at the school need help with winter clothes.

“They come in with just hoodies, old clothes, clothes too small, shoes too small – kind of whatever they can get.”

For students who become homeless, staff try to provide what help they can by supplying them with a tents and sleeping bags, if necessary, food, and care packages of toiletries and clothes while they work with the Ministry of Children and Family Development to get them housed.

Some students who were living in a tent since September have recently found temporary accommodation with a relative but only for the winter, she said.

“But they won’t have anywhere to go after that.”

And 100 per cent of donations to AAS go to schools.

How to Donate

1. PHONE: To pay by credit card, call 604-813-8673.

2. ONLINE: Donate online using Visa or Mastercard at vansunkidsfund.ca

Donations are tax deductible

By Gerry Bellett (gbellett@gmail.com)