ONEXONE First Nations School Breakfast Program Launches in Four Sask. Schools
Press Release
April 14, 2016
ABD Partners with ONEXONE, Donates $80,000 to kick-start Breakfast Programs in 4 Schools in the Athabasca region
Prince Albert, SK – Four schools in Saskatchewan will be starting breakfast programs using ONEXONE’s First Nations School Breakfast program.
The national program, which currently runs successful breakfast programs in 35 schools across 6 provinces in Canada, is a program that aims to provide daily breakfasts to school age kids for $1 per child per day. Four schools in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca region have been approved with everything in place ready to go for their program.
Father Gamache School in Fond du Lac, Father Porte Memorial Denesuline School in Black Lake, Ben McIntyre School in Uranium City, and Stony Rapids School in Stony Rapids, have a combined 400 students who will all be receiving daily breakfasts under the program.
“On behalf of Stony Rapids students and staff, I thank ONEXONE and Athabasca Basin Development for supporting our nutrition program,” says Mr. Kevin O’Brien, Principal of Stony Rapids School. “Through this generous contribution, we are providing nutritious meals to our students on a daily basis!”
“The kids really enjoy the homemade breakfasts every school day,” says Mr. Douglas Preikschat, Principal of Ben McIntyre School. “Eggs and fresh fruit are a welcome nutritious treat in an isolated northern community like ours.”
In 2015, Athabasca Basin Development donated $40,000 to kickstart a breakfast program in the Athabasca region, and will be contributing another $40,000 in 2016. “One of our investments, Arctic Beverages, has provided support for ONEXONE through donations and fundraisers for many years,” says Geoff Gay, CEO of Athabasca Basin Development. “We saw that ONEXONE was doing great work in providing an excellent and sustainable breakfast program in First Nations across the country. And since there was strong interest from the Athabasca communities in having breakfast programs in their schools, we saw this as a natural fit for our donations program. We are so pleased to support this program, and excited to be seeing the programs launch in schools in the Athabasca communities so that children in the region will have access to good, nutritional breakfasts each day to help support them now and into the future.”
“We are excited to be partnering with Athabasca Basin Development to launch breakfast programs in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca region,” says Joelle Berdugo Adler, Founder of ONEXONE Foundation. “First Nations children suffer the greatest levels of poverty among all children in Canada. 1 in 3 First Nations children live in poverty as compared to 1 in 9 Canadian children on average. In remote communities, this number is often higher. Children do not always know where they will find their next meal and they are unable to consistently access nutritious and adequate amounts of food necessary for a healthy life. We’ve seen positive outcomes in terms of improved student
behavior, better health, and improved concentration leading to better learning outcomes, and we’d like to thank Athabasca Basin Development for coming on board as a sponsor for this important initiative.”
ONEXONE’s First Nations Breakfast School Program is open to any school with First Nations students, pending application and acceptance, and funding availability. The program is community driven, and includes funding for food, as well as planning, training and support to run the program. For more information, please visit www.onexone.org.
For more information, please contact:
Kristy Jackson, Director of Marketing & Communications Shoraez Shahjahan
Athabasca Basin Development ONEXONE Foundation
kjackson@athabascabasin.ca shoraez@onexone.org
306.382.5867 416.901.1291
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