Sydenham Students Flock To Lunch4Teens Meal

Jeff Green | Nov 14, 2013

Build it and they will come. That phrase wasn't coined to refer to a free home-made lunch program for students but judging by the turn out at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Sydenham on November 12, it might have well have been. That was when Lunch4Teens launched its first free lunchtime meal for Sydenham High School students and no one was more pleased to see close to 40 students file through the side door at St. Paul's than Janet Knights.

Knights founded and leads the program and said that for her it is a way of providing a healthy home-made lunch to students while also giving them a chance to get out into the community. “I don't remember exactly what inspired me to start it but I knew it would be a good thing,” Janet said when I Interviewed her at St. Paul's on the day of the launch. Janet was assisted by a cheerful group of volunteers, all members of the congregation at St. Paul's and at this point in time she is relying on her own funds to provide the food for the meals.

After speaking with Lisa Taylor, who heads up the hospitality program at Sydenham High School, Taylor offered to have her students prepare the meal.

The meal included home-made squash or chicken noodle soup, egg salad and ham and cheese sandwiches, home-made cookies and a box of juice, and was enjoyed by the students, who arrived en masse at the church. Janet invited each of them to complete a survey that asked what soups and sandwiches they would like for a lunch time meal.

The program will continue weekly every Tuesday at the church from 12:30-1:30 p.m. Janet said that in the hopes of continuing the program into the future and in an effort to make it sustainable, she is planning to approach local businesses, churches, service groups and other organizations and will be asking them to help by donating funds to secure the food costs for the program. Individuals can make donations as well.

So far she is getting a lot of community support and the Sydenham Legion has already committed to providing a lunch and volunteers to serve it up. She also said that two chance meetings at the Foodland grocery store in Sydenham, one with famed NHL'er Doug Gilmore and a second with Canadian comedian Dan Ackroyd, led to both gentleman offering up their support for the program. Janet is also looking for volunteers to help serve the meals.

I not only had a chance to enjoy the meal but also to ask students how they liked their first Lunch4Teens meal. Chantal Lefevre, a grade 11 student at SHS, said she loved the sandwiches and the soup and that it was a much better meal than she might have eaten if she had been left to her own devices. Hunter Spafford, another grade 11 student, agreed and said she really appreciated the delicious and healthy choices, and grade 12 student Ed Burley gave the meal two big thumbs up.

It looks as though Janet has begun something that has very quickly caught on. No doubt she needs to be prepared for what might become an ever-increasing lineup at the church doors every Tuesday. She also said that the program affords enough to feed roughly 50 students and that the meals are given out first-come, first-serve. Anyone wanting to make a donation or to volunteer can contact Janet Knights at 613-379-6948 or 613-545-7039.