North Battleford mayor David Gillan, left, and Battleford mayor Ames Leslie will be taking part in the Great Big Crunch. (Submitted photo/Rhea Good)

By Angela Brown

Eating healthy

Local mayors to take part in Great Big Crunch online event

Mar 10, 2021 | 5:00 PM

The City of North Battleford and the Town of Battleford have both proclaimed March 11 as the annual Great Big Crunch–Healthy School Food Day.

North Battleford mayor David Gillan and Battleford mayor Ames Leslie will both be speaking in the national online event that runs from 1:30 to 2 p.m. local time.

“The idea is that school children across Canada crunch together on apples, carrots, other fresh fruits and vegetables, and create awareness of eating healthy food at school,” Gillan said during this week’s city council meeting when reading the proclamation.

The mayors are encouraging all citizens to join in the initiative by eating fresh, healthy crunchy foods for their lunch.

Other organizations also involved in this event are the two local school divisions who will also be taking part at the same time.

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The Great Big Crunch national event is organized by the Coalition for Healthy School Food (CHSF), which advocates for healthy school food so children will adopt healthy habits “to last a lifetime,” according to the release.

Canada is ranked 37th of 41 countries for providing healthy food through school food programs.

Organizers are encouraging students and staff to bring healthy, crunchy foods to school on Thursday. Schools that provide in-house food products will serve such items as apples, carrots and celery sticks, for kids to enjoy.

Local educator Rhea Good is also on the board of directors of the non-profit organization Pilot Project for Universal Lunches in Schools Inc.’s (PPULS). She noted one in five students in Canada comes from a food insecure home.

“We really do need to address this issue, and school is a really logical place to do that,” she said. “We’ve got all sorts of other infrastructure and service delivery happening under the roof of the school system, and since the students are there all day it does make sense to have a healthy school lunch included as part of that day.”

More information about healthy school food advocacy is available at the PPULS website.

The online link to register to view the Great Big Crunch–Healthy School Food Day event on March 11 is available here.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW