About Us

The Coalition for Healthy School Food is the largest school food network in Canada.

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We are over 270 non-profit member organizations from every province and territory. We advocate for the creation of a universal cost-shared school food program for Canada, that would see all K-12 students having daily access to healthy food at school. Building on existing programs across the country, all schools will eventually serve a healthy meal or snack at little or no cost to students. These programs will include food education and serve culturally appropriate, local, sustainable food to the fullest extent possible. See our guiding principles for what our ideal school food program looks like.

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Our vision is a Canada in which every school-aged child and youth has a healthy meal or snack at school daily.

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Our mission is to work with partners across Canada to: 

• advocate for a universal cost-shared healthy Canada-wide school food program; 

• strengthen commitments from provinces and territories, local governments and school communities; and 

• support replication, networking and sharing of best practices for the thousands of diverse school food programs and models across Canada.

 

In addition to our member organizations, the Coalition’s vision is endorsed by over 80 school boards, municipalities, health boards  and other government agencies and organizations.

 

We offer a democratic and participatory structure that is informed by programs on the ground:

• Our structure is collaborative and grassroots-based; the Coalition leadership works to engage members and integrate their perspectives into the Coalition’s directions

• Our monthly Steering Committee meetings include representatives from each province

• We host quarterly meetings to engage with and hear from members and we hold other members-meetings and public events for members to network, share info and best practices with each other, and learn about promising practices

• Our provincial Chapters or Advisories self-organize to support local direction and engagement and work to increase their provincial and municipal government’s support and funding of school food programs

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The Coalition is hosted by Food Secure Canada.

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Canada is one of the only industrialized countries without a federally supported school food program and was recently ranked 37th of 41 countries around providing healthy food for kids. A universal healthy school food program would support the health, wellbeing and education of all children in Canada.