B.C. is providing $1 million to further support school children’s access to fresh B.C.-grown fruit and vegetable snacks in the classroom.
This funding is in addition to a $3 million expansion announced in May 2011, and will help support the expansion of the BC School Fruit and Vegetable Nutritional Program to include more public and First Nations schools across the province. It is expected that an additional 75 schools will join the program by September 2012, and a further 75 schools will join by January 2013, benefitting up to 27,000 more children each year. This would bring the total participating schools to 1,484.
The program will also continue to support schools that wish to purchase fridges and provide salad bars, as ways of offering fresh fruit and vegetables in the school.
Additionally, the funding will enable the program to explore new models for increasing children’s and families’ access to fresh, local fruit and vegetables.
The objective of the BC School Fruit and Vegetable Nutritional Program is to increase students’ knowledge of, preference for and consumption of, fruits and vegetables. The program provides B.C. grown fresh fruit and vegetable snacks to children in all grades and is available to most of B.C.’s public and First Nations schools.
The program was created in partnership with the Ministries of Health, Agriculture, and Education and is led by the BC Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation, a non- profit organization dedicated to bringing B.C.’s agriculture to students.
The BC School Fruit and Vegetable Nutritional Program promotes B.C.grown produce, and distributors include the Overwaitea Food Group, Saputo Dairy Products Canada, Dynamex Couriers, Bayview Market and Papason Trucking Ltd.