HALIFAX:<\/strong> As kids head back to school this week, many will be trying to cope with little or nothing to eat throughout the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Feed Nova Scotia, the number of people accessing food banks across the province has doubled since last year \u2013 and most of the clients are families with young children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over 100,000 people in Nova Scotia are food insecure, and one of the biggest hardships facing families in this situation is the inability to provide a healthy lunch for their child at school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”34″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”72″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Nova Scotia Liberal Party has repeatedly called on the Houston government to consider a universal school lunch program similar to Prince Edward Island\u2019s, to help provide nutritious free lunches to children in grades primary through 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA universal lunch program in Nova Scotia would be a significant step forward in knocking down barriers that many families face when it comes to affording food,\u201d said Lawrence Shebib, executive director of the North Sydney Food Bank Society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s still much more work that needs to be done to address food insecurity in our province, but there\u2019s no question that every child deserves to have a healthy lunch at school, regardless of their family\u2019s income.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate group=”6″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”127″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n A breakfast program is offered in most of Nova Scotia\u2019s public schools. Having a free lunch program alongside that would ensure children have consistent access to nutritious meals throughout the day, to better support their overall wellbeing and academic success.<\/p>\n\n\n \u201cThe bottom line is that a healthy eater makes for a healthy learner. Children spend a significant part of their day at school throughout the week, and they shouldn\u2019t have to go hungry while in the classroom,\u201d Education and Early Childhood Development shadow minister Patricia Arab said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA universal school lunch program will help strengthen the existing breakfast programs running, and alleviate some of the challenges caused by these unprecedented times we\u2019re in.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”148″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n [adrotate banner=”31″]<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [adrotate banner=”105″] [adrotate banner=”174″] From a N.S. Liberal Party release HALIFAX: As kids head back to school this week, many will be trying to cope with little or nothing to eat throughout the day. According to Feed Nova Scotia, the number of people accessing food banks across the province has doubled since last year \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[957],"tags":[94,48,4147,4148,1379],"class_list":["post-31147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-liberals","tag-n-s","tag-patricia-arab","tag-school-lunch-program","tag-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/250988666_302501291695933_6267510268536314451_n-e1662626688446.jpg\")