CALGARY -- Each day in Calgary, an estimated 4,700 children go to school without a lunch.
That’s an increase of 300 children since the start of the 2019 school year.
And it's something Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids is working to change.
The not-for-profit organization makes more than 1,300 lunches every morning in its downtown kitchen, while community organizations make up the rest to keep hungry kids fed.
The charity relies on volunteers to help. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, staff and executives from Qualico pitched in.
Thilo Kaufman, general manager of assets at Qualico, lead a team of 10 staffers volunteering at BB4CK. Qualico also decided to give $50,000 in donations to BB4CK.
“We just saw the need in the community and that’s what we wanted to do so as a group of employees and executives within the company," he said.
"We decided that’s where we’re going to put the money toward.”
Kaufman said once a month, the company’s Calgary head office kitchen is taken over by staff who make upward of 1,400 sandwiches for BB4CK.
“Entire teams get right into it, it’s a real good session because all of them have children, they watch what they do with their kids every day at school, they’ve seen it happen, they know how important lunch is so they get right into it as a team,” said Kaufman.
Tanya Koshowski, executive director at BB4CK, said she’s grateful for the help and cash donation from Qualico and knows the company is doing even more.
“They’re actually doing a contest at work to build or construct Christmas ornaments with food and then make those donations of food; so the snack supplies of granola and pre-packaged snacks go to brown bagging," she said.
Learn more about BB4CK online.
