Feeding Our Future by Feeding Young Minds

Winnipeg, July 18 - Winnipeg Harvest is pleased to partner with the Sodexho Foundation to provide healthy lunches to hungry children enrolled in various community programs in Winnipeg this summer. The initiative was created in 2000 and is now running seven Canadian cities.

During July and August, bright and early each weekday morning, Sodexho employees are voluntarily gathering at Balmoral Hall School to assemble 150 healthy lunches, which are being picked up by Winnipeg Harvest and delivered to five community programs throughout Winnipeg.

Winnipeg Harvest Executive Coordinator, David Northcott says, the Feeding Our Future lunch program is an excellent initiative that supports Winnipeg Harvest's mission. “Manitoba has been one of the top three provinces with the highest child poverty rate in Canada for the last twenty years. We know that hunger does not take a holiday. By supplying lunches to these children we help them to get a nutritious meal. Our goal at Winnipeg Harvest is to wipe out hunger and Feeding Our Future brings us one step closer.”

To celebrate the Feeding Our Future program the Sodexho Foundation will be hosting a barbeque on July 19, with Guest of Honour, International Children's Entertainer, Fred Penner from 12 p.m.-1 p.m. at the Sister Mac Namara Boys and Girls Club, 460 Sargent Avenue.

Winnipeg Harvest is a not-for-profit community based organization committed to providing food to people who struggle to feed themselves and their families and continue to work to reduce poverty while continuing to maximize public awareness of hunger. All donations collected in Manitoba remain in Manitoba for local distribution. The need for food bank donations in Winnipeg over the summer is great. Winnipeg Harvest distributes food to over 39,000 people every month, 47 per cent are children.
 
Sodexho is the leading provider of food and facilities management in North America. Sodexho offers innovative outsourcing solutions in food service, housekeeping, grounds keeping, plant operations and maintenance, asset and materials management, and laundry services to corporations, health care and long term care facilities, retirement centres, schools, college and university campuses, military and remote sites. With Canadian Headquarters in Burlington, Ontario the company has 130,000 employees at more than 6,000 locations across North America. Sodexho Canada has been awarded the Gold level certification for the Progressive Aboriginal Relations program (PAR) with the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business (CCAB). Sodexho Canada has created the charitable organization, the Sodexho Foundation, which is dedicated to the fight against hunger as it impacts over 5 million people in Canada.

For more information, please contact:

Shannon Pontes, Communications, Winnipeg Harvest
204-982-3584 or mailto:media@winnipegharvest.org

Jon Kristjanson, Vice President, Sodexho
905-632-8592 ext.250 or jon.kristjanson@sodexhoCA.com, www.sodexho.ca