Beaver Brae Public School, Kenora, ON
Grant term, 2023-2024
The Four Directions Program at Beaver Brae Secondary School in Kenora Ontario has been the source of food for students in high school for the last few years. With a decrease to lunch programs within high schools, students’ only other option for food is the cafeteria. With rising food prices and costs, the cafeteria is not affordable for all students and Four Directions has become a place where students who need food can access it.
The Four Directions Program is an integrated, community-based partnership framework based out of high schools across the Keewatin Patricia District School Board, it has been running in Beaver Brae for almost 10 years now. It is geared towards Indigenous students and providing them support beyond the school setting, working at addressing complex psycho-social issues that contribute to graduation rates, substance use, health and mental-health related outcomes.
The Four Directions program has a Graduation Coach working within the space to support students in achieving their credits and reaching graduation. The program specifically supports grade 9-12 students and Beaver Brae has roughly 230 high school students attending this 2023-2024 school year. Daily, the Four Directions program has 50 or more students come through their doors. More than 70% of the students coming through the program are there to access food in some type of way. The program serves lunch almost daily for students at no cost. The program initially had a regular-sized refrigerator and in the last year, it has quickly outgrown the food needs of students. There were many limitations on what could be bought as the fridge only held a small amount of food. Beaver Brae is also part of the Northern Fruit and Vegetable Program (NVFP) provided by the Northwestern Health Unit in Kenora. The NFVP sends a different fresh fruit and vegetable every week and with the limited fridge space, this posed issues and would result in wasted food or it being donated elsewhere.
Carrie Nagy, the Student Support Navigator, who works in Four Directions alongside the Graduation Coach had championed the grant and obtained it to purchase a larger, industrial-sized commercial fridge. Carrie saw the increased need for healthier foods for students in Four Directions, while also seeing the potential for more food-based activities and events that could be provided to students. Carrie said, “Students are coming into our space regularly for food, and having to be limited on what we offered to students was having an impact on students utilizing other services that Four Directions offers”. She goes on to say, “Food is a HUGE way we connect with students and start to develop positive relationships to be able to help them succeed, the money from this grant that allowed us to purchase the fridge has opened many doors for us.” Carrie hopes to run larger programming next year and have students more involved in basic cooking and life skills. She was also able to make some partnerships with local food purchasing companies to be able to bring larger quantities of food in at cheaper prices and healthier options.
Now that there is a larger fridge in the space, Four Directions will continue to expand their food literacy activities by hopefully starting cultural teachings around food and medicine with Elders and Knowledge Keepers.
