Amid decade-high inflation, Breakfast Club of Canada is launching an ambitious Back-to-School fundraising campaign to continue supporting school nutrition programs and ensure that children go to school with a healthy breakfast.
The Club and its partners currently help to reach more than 580,000 children each morning in over 3,500 school nutrition programs. There are also a couple hundred schools on the Club’s waitlist for such a program and the list continues to increase.
Due to an increase in operating costs related to the pandemic, the expansion of the scope of programs and rising food costs, the organization will struggle to maintain support for existing breakfast programs during the upcoming school year.
These steep cost increases are having a significant impact on the Club’s operations and in the absence of a National School Food Program and temporary emergency funding from the government, the school nutrition ecosystem is even more reliant on individual and corporate contributions.
“We are currently experiencing a perfect storm of obstacles that is having a substantial impact on our operations and our ability to support programs,” explains Tommy Kulczyk, President and CEO of Breakfast Club of Canada. “Our expenses for food, equipment and transportation are increasing at a faster rate than our revenues and breakfast programs are becoming more expensive to maintain.”
A Shortfall of A Couple Million Dollars
According to revenue projections, in order to maintain its support for school nutrition programs already backed in part by the Club, the organization anticipates a significant financial shortfall for the 2022-2023 school year. At this time, no new additional breakfast programs can be supported by the Club in schools over the coming school year.
“In 27 years of existence, the Club has never broken its promise to the children,” declares Judith Barry, Co-Founder and Director, Government Relations at Breakfast Club of Canada. “More than ever, the Club needs the support of public and private donors to help feed children in a context where they are often the most vulnerable.”
The Back-to-School Campaign, the Club’s largest fundraising campaign of the year, will run until October 30, 2022. To make a donation:
Online: www.breakfastclubcanada.org/bts2022
Text message: Text CLUB to 20222
