Squamish School Meal Program

Squamish CAN (Climate Action Network) has partnered with Sea to Sky School District (SD48) to extend its services by providing our School Meal Program. The program is intended to ensure that all students can access nourishing food at school, regardless of family income and without stigma.

Squamish CAN supports feeding Sea to Sky School District Students in Squamish through:

Pay-What-You-Can School Lunch Program
Food in low-barrier School Fridges
Breakfast items for before school breakfast programs

The Squamish School Meal Program is currently serving 500 students, however, government funding only covers approximately 200 fully subsidized students. Families may choose to access food programs for many reasons, including: taking off the burden of making lunches at home, their kids enjoy the food and eating with their peers, it eases the financial stress on their family, injury or temporary circumstances impacting the ability to provide for their family, or other reasons.

Our school meal program operates on a pay-what-you-can model to ensure program sustainability and equitable access. Given limited resources, we ask that families contribute what they can to ensure we can keep offering the program into the future to benefit the community!

FAQs for "Pay-What-You-Can" Lunch Program:

What does “Pay What You Can” Mean?

We want to offer a nutritious, delicious lunch to all families who would like to access this program—whether it is because they don’t have time to make a lunch, they can’t afford it, or they want their child to have access to a healthier option.
Through the Feeding Futures program, we have funding to support students who need access to a free or low-cost meal. However, the funding is not enough to cover all students to access a free lunch.
We have a recommended cost of $120 per month for schools on the program 5 days a week, and $50 a week for those on the 2 day a week program.
We live in a place where there is a great distance between families with wealth and families who struggle to put food in their children’s lunch box each day. If you can afford to pay the suggested price, we deeply encourage you to do so.
If you are in a position to offer a donation over and above that amount to help cover costs for families in need, your generosity would make an enormous contribution to this program. You can also donate to food programs in Squamish here to ensure all students can access the food they need and receive a charitable receipt.

Contributions directly fund meals for students. Just $1,200 feeds a student for an entire school year. Tax receipts are available. Select School “School District No. 48”, Initiative: “Squamish School Meal Program”

How do I pay for the lunch program?

Can I pick which days my student receives lunch?

I no longer want to be on the program, how can I unenrol?

I am interested in being on the program, how do I sign up?

What food will be provided?

Are dietary restrictions and allergies accommodated?

At this time we do not have capacity to provide options for dietary restrictions, in the future we are hoping to add the option to opt-in to a vegetarian version of the meal program.

We recommend that students with anaphylactic allergies do not participate in the meal program as we cannot guarantee the risk of cross contamination. If you have any specific concerns or questions, please contact [email protected]

I want to volunteer to support food programs in the Sea to Sky, how do I sign up?

Do you have further questions or feedback? Reach out to [email protected]