First Nation lunch program provides well-balanced meals for students in the North

Ramona Meekis, lunch program coordinator at SchoolBox, prepares well balanced lunches for elementary school students who have to travel half-an-hour by school bus to another community. – Photo supplied

By Rick Garrick

WABAUSKANG FIRST NATION — The SchoolBOX North Lunch Program in Wabauskang First Nation in Treaty #3 pivoted their on-reserve school lunch program to provide weekly lunch boxes to families during the latest COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.

“We went shopping and provided them with juice boxes, something that they can make for themselves at home like chicken nuggets or sandwiches, just quick easy meals the parents can help the kids make,” says Ramona Meekis, lunch program coordinator at SchoolBox and a Wabauskang citizen. “We also provided some fruit, granola bars, cheese.”

Meekis says the band helped with the higher cost of food during the lockdown, when she could not travel to a larger town she usually went to shop for groceries due to COVID-19 protocols.

“They have helped with a bit of the cost during COVID-19 time because the [grocery] prices in our surrounding area were pretty high,” Meekis says. “We try to limit ourselves to $300 a week. When we told the Chief and Council about that, they said they could help with half of it — if we were going to spend $300, they would chip in with $300 also, so that was great.”

The SchoolBOX lunch program was first started in 2019 by Marshall Moore, who is currently pursuing post-secondary studies, with support from Terri Meekis, director, SchoolBOX North, and Wabauskang citizen, who initially got involved with SchoolBOX in 2012 when she helped build schools in Nicaragua through SchoolBOX’s Indigenous Youth Empowering Student Program (IYES).

“We’re providing school lunches for kids in Kindergarten all the way to Grade 8, giving them well balanced lunches,” Meekis says, noting that the elementary school students have a half-hour bus ride to school. “For the high school [students], we’ve been providing them with gift cards that they use in high school because they have an hour-and-a-half drive just to get to school.”

Meekis says the elementary school lunches contain snacks, sandwiches, drinks, fruit and yogurt.

“We get the lunches ready the day before and we put them on the school bus with the school bus driver,” Meekis says. “The school bus driver distributes a bag to each student.”

Meekis says the parents appreciate the support they have received from the SchoolBOX lunch program.

“Some of the parents around here are single parents, so it actually helped them about not having to worry about providing a lunch for their kids at school,” Meekis says.

Meekis says Terri, her sister, also worked with SchoolBOX to set up a First Nations Public Library, including the gathering of donations such as books, in the community at the youth centre before the pandemic.

“And then our community came together to put everything together,” Meekis says. “It’s good to work with SchoolBOX and help families in the community.”

Sarah Kerr, executive director at SchoolBOX, says Terri explained that it was so empowering to be able to build schools in Nicaragua that it would be nice to have something like that in her own community, noting that Wabauskang does not have a school. SchoolBOX started in 2006 in Nicaragua and has since built 120 classrooms in Nicaragua.

“So we partnered in 2017 and brought SchoolBOX home in a sense and expanded our mission into Treaty #3 and we established the Wabauskang First Nation library which is now registered with Ontario Library Services,” Kerr says. “And then from there, different communities have been reaching out asking for support for their libraries, so we then put in a children’s library and a youth library into Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation. We repurposed the renovation on a fire hall and turned it into their library which is now registered with Ontario Library Services.”

Kerr says they are now working on a library addition for the Gaagagekiizhik Elementary and Bimose High School in Kenora that serves seven First Nations.

“We’re going to equip it with Indigenous literature,” Kerr says. “It’s just a beautiful learning space.”