Join Spud in Our Mission to Fight Food Insecurity with Fuel Up School Lunch Program

Did you know that 1 in 6 Canadian children under the age of 18 are affected by household food insecurity? Canada has over one million kids that need help to fight off hunger—and you can make a difference.

At Spud, we’re passionate about supporting local businesses and providing families in British Columbia with access to healthy, convenient groceries. But, our province has one of the highest levels of child poverty. This year, we’re partnering with the Fuel Up School Lunch Program to support vulnerable families, provide healthy meals, and ensure that no child goes hungry. It’s not an easy task, but with your help we can have a real impact.

Fuel Up School Lunch Program

The Fuel Up School Lunch Program prepares fresh lunches for elementary and middle schools in the New Westminster and Abbotsford School Districts, along with select institutions in Burnaby, Vancouver, and West Vancouver. Their programs support vulnerable children in schools so that they too receive hot lunch, subsidized without classmates noticing. This school lunch program launched in 2019 to achieve an important goal: to ensure that no child is hungry, and every child eats healthy. 

They’ve created a fresh meal delivery solution that offers more people healthy, tasty, and warm food that is good quality, yet affordable—an essential necessity, especially during COVID-19. 

So far, the program has served 60,000+ hot lunches and 35,000+ subsidized meals!

How the program works

A portion from each meal ordered supports a subsidy for a child who otherwise might not have a lunch to eat. School districts have the option to implement a subsidy program, offering partial or full coverage for student meal costs. These meals are individually packaged and are made in-house, fresh from scratch. Subsidized and unsubsidized meals are made and packaged the exact same to reduce any stigmatization that may happen.

How you can help us fight food insecurity  

Join us in our mission to fight food injustice by donating in all or one of three ways:   

• By purchasing our Back to School Bundles—we are donating $1 per bundle! 
• Placing non-perishable items in your Spud bin:
  • Pasta
  • Snacks with a long shelf life: granola bars, chips, popcorn, baked goods, crackers
  • Canned food
  • Dried Food
  • Soy beverage products (that can be stored in room temperature)
• By donating directly to the Fuel Up School Lunch Program via our donation buttons

Together, we can tackle food insecurity and provide a great start for kids going back to school.