Mealshare and A&W Canada partner to tackle youth hunger in Canada. (Supplied photo/Mealshare)

By Keaton Brown

Buy One Give One

Mealshare provides a great opportunity to curb youth hunger in Canada

Nov 6, 2019 | 2:00 PM

A new way for people to treat themselves while also helping local charities is coming to the Battlefords.

Mealshare has partnered with A&W Canada to help feed youth in need across the country.

Mealshare is a national social enterprise on a mission to end youth hunger. It is a buy one give one program that lets Canadians satisfy their desire to eat out while also making an impact in their community.

It was founded in 2013, starting with four partner restaurants in Alberta. The organization has now expanded to 500+ restaurants across North America.

Participating restaurants have select items on their menus that will appear with the Mealshare icon beside them. A purchase of those items will result in the donation of a meal to a youth in need.

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Mealshare icon on participating restaurant’s menu. (Supplied photo/Mealshare)

Mealshare co-founder Andrew Hall talked about how a lot of Canadians are not aware how many children in the country are plagued with food insecurity.

“Most Canadians are surprised to hear that about one in five kids across the country is food insecure. A lot of us are fairly fortunate but when you hear that a lot of kids are going to school on an empty stomach or coming home to a house with empty cupboards, that is pretty shocking,” he said.

From October 28 to December 1, Mealshare and A&W will provide one meal to a youth in need for every Mushroom Mozzarella Combo purchased at participation locations in Saskatchewan and Ottawa. That includes the two locations in the Battlefords.

Hall said that pairing Canadians love for dining out with the opportunity to give back to their community is a great way to improve food insecurity across the country.

“There is something like eight million Canadians that dine out in some form every week in Canada. There is all this opportunity where we are dining out and there is an opportunity for improvement with kids who are not getting the food they need. Being able to pair those up together and say if we can give just a little bit from those of us who can afford to go out and eat then we can pretty much eradicate youth hunger in Canada,” he said.

Mealshare and A&W hope to share over 15 thousand meals with youth in need through their partnership, adding to the 3.1 million meals served so far by restaurant partners across Canada and the U.S.

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Keaton.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow