Parents at Blackburn elementary have started a healthy food program in response to hungry kids.
Randi Dery started volunteering in her boy's classroom last year, when she started noticing some students consistently weren't eating lunch.
"I was seeing that more and more kids were coming to school with no food," said Dery, mother to seven-year-old Kaleb and six-year-old Brody.
"Hungry kids is angry kids. They disrupt the class and it's a snowball effect," said Dery, who was volunteering because her son's class was "very high maintenance."
So she spent the summer planning, and by September had the program in place.
It's called Let's Eat and twice a week Dery fills a basket of fresh food - fruit, juice boxes, fig bars - in each of the 10 classrooms.
It's important to Dery that the food be in the rooms and available to everyone, unlike some food programs where kids go to the office to get a meal.
"That's not fair. They shouldn't have to put their hand up and say 'I'm hungry, can I go get food?' because there's shame involved," she said. "They don't want to say they're hungry. I just think it's important not to put a spotlight on those kids."
She estimated it costs about $60 a month to sustain the program.
She runs it with two other mothers - Sarah Wheeler and Stacey Schick - and now that word is getting out about the program, people are starting to drop food off at Dery's home too.
When Dery got the idea, she started canvassing the business community for support and ended up at Murdoch Veterinary Clinic's doorstep.
"Dr. Murdoch just wrote me a check and said 'here,'" recalled Dery of the $200 donation.
"If it wasn't for them, it would be coming out of my own pocket. She didn't bat an eye at that.
"She said 'This is my community and I want to help.'"
Principal Lori Dennill said it's meant a lot to have that community support.
"It's just been amazing that parents are coming up with the ideas and then also that the community is recognizing that there are students at the school that need support and that it could be anybody."
Dennill said it's not a surprise to know that some families in the neighbourhood need help.
"I think in every school there are some families that are struggling," she said.
"I think it's just at different times in people's lives things are going on. Some months are better than other months."
Dery said at first she was worried about waste, but that it hasn't been a problem.
"It's an amazing response. Some kindergarteners aren't using as much food," she said, but "it's the Grade 4 or 5 even 7 classes are always empty."
She said getting involved in this way has meant the world to her.
"I'm a stay-at-home-mom. I'm constantly at the school but now that the kids are recognizing that I have food, they're just so happy. Their faces light up," she said, and they start asking about the new food.
Dery said she wanted to talk about the program in hopes other schools consider it too.
"It's not that hard. It just takes one person."
