The Child Nutrition Council (CNC) of Manitoba's done amazing work right here in Portage la Prairie over the last few years.

Four schools breakfast/snack programs received some support from the CNC including Fort La Reine, La Verendrye, and North Memorial Schools, as well as Brennan Colony School.

Ferris is glad to be able to help out so many students in Portage la Prairie. (Photo from CNC website.)

"We're very happy to help out," says executive director Melanie Ferris. "The CNC has existed for about 16 years. We're a very small non-profit organization that's concerned about children's health. We were concerned that a lot of children were going to school hungry because of a lot of different reasons. So a lot of volunteers worked together to advocate for funding so that we could provide this for schools, and they could then serve healthy snacks for the students."

"We only provide a portion of the funding," admits Ferris. "We ask the schools to come up with some of the money on their own. Last year we provided about 18 per cent of the total cost of the breakfast programs. So the schools do things like fundraising, they have to be really creative and a lot of the teachers involved work really hard to make sure they can deliver the programs. They just don't get the funding from us and be able to provide the snacks and the breakfasts from that funding alone. It takes a whole community to do things like this."

She adds people can go to their website at childnutritioncouncil.com, Dieticians.ca, or look into Manitoba's Dial-A-Dietician to learn more about eating healthy. 

Fort la Reine School
Vegetable and fruit snack program
2 days per week
200 students
Total snacks supported this school year: 14,800

La Verendrye School
Snack program
3 days per week
348 students
Total snacks supported this school year: 38,628

North Memorial School
Breakfast program
5 days per week
165 students
Total breakfasts supported this school year: 30,525

Brennan Colony School
Minimal support of $500
31 students