Feeding Our Future: 10 Years Fighting Hunger! - Sodexo and Moisson Montréal
have served more than 225,000 lunches to underprivileged children in Montreal

MONTREAL, July 20 /CNW Telbec/ - More than 1,000 children from underprivileged areas in Montreal are receiving a free lunch this summer thanks to the Feeding Our Future program. From June 28 to August 20, 35,000 lunches will be offered by Sodexo in partnership with the Moisson Montréal food bank. More than 225,000 meals have been given to children in the city since the program's beginning. And a total of 450,000 lunches have been distributed to children across Canada over ten years.

"I have received a healthy meal every lunch-time during my day camp for three years. I am happy because I have the energy all day long to play and learn new things from the counsellors," recounts the young Laura L'Africain, 10 years old, participating at the Centre sportif La Petite-Bourgogne.

A third of the people supported every month by Moisson Montréal, 39,000 of them, are children. With the Feeding Our Future program, the organisation is able to reach kids. "Moisson Montréal and Sodexo have been working together since 2001 to fight poverty and hunger. Partnerships like this are precious for everybody," explains the general director of Moisson Montréal, Johanne Théroux.

"Our concern with Feeding Our Future is to enable a growing number of children to adequately feed themselves not only in Montreal but also elsewhere in the country. Present in Toronto only in 2000, the program extends now to Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary and Hamilton," explains Denise Bernachez, director of marketing and development for Sodexo Québec.

Healthy menus and educational workshops

The Feeding Our Future program enables hundreds of youth between 4 and 12 years old at summer camps to receive a healthy lunch for free. Summer camps are offered by twelve community organisations that Moisson Montréal provisions all year: L'Assistance enfants en difficulté, le Centre communautaire Hochelaga, la Maisonnette des parents, la Place des enfants, le Chic Resto-Pop, Centre Naha, le Centre sportif La Petite-Bourgogne, le Centre Jean-Claude Malépart, le Répit-Providence, l'Oasis des enfants de Rosemont, L'Organisation des jeunes de Parc-Extension (P.E.Y.O.) and the Mountain Sights Community Centre.

The meals are prepared voluntarily every day by Sodexo employees and some employees of Moisson Montréal. The spokesperson for her 4th year, the dietitian Isabelle Huot, Dt.P, Ph.D, is involved in creating healthy menus for children's lunches. In addition to receiving free lunchtime meals, children can also participate in workshops on nutrition to learn the basics of healthy eating.

Sodexo is pleased to be able to count on partners such as Multi-Marques, Maple Leaf, Olymel, Kraft, Parmalat, Lassonde Beverages, Quaker, Hector Larivée, Pathway, Distal, Shafer Haggart, Canbra Foods and Unilever who supply a part of the foodstuffs for the meals free of charge. Kraft and The City of Montreal also support the program with monetary donations. The Old Brewery Mission generously distributes the lunches and Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf lends out its kitchen all summer. Éducazoo will also come amuse the children with reptiles during a BBQ day that brings together all the program's participants. Such partnerships have made Feeding Our Future such a success for ten years now.

The Feeding Our Future Program

Founded in 2000 by the Sodexo Foundation, Feeding Our Future is a program that offers free meals during the summer period to children who benefit from subsidized meals during the school year. In addition to supplying some of the food for lunch-making free of charge, Moisson Montréal has the mandate to select the day camps that benefit from the program and act as liaison between the camps and Sodexo.

Moisson Montréal

Moisson Montréal is a not-for-profit organisation that gathers and distributes foodstuffs and essential products free of charge all year to community organisations on the Island of Montreal. Annually distributing almost 7.7 million kilos of food to 211 organisations who help 115,000 people every month, Moisson Montréal is the largest food bank in Canada. www.moissonmontreal.org

Sodexo

Quality of Life in service and performance

Because we believe that Quality of Life is part of the progress of individuals and the performance of organisations, Sodexo, created by Pierre Bellon in 1966, has been the strategic partner for businesses and institutions seeking performance and the well-being of their personnel for more than 40 years. In 80 countries, the Group's 380,000 collaborators, driven by a similar passion for service, create and implement a unique range of on-site Service and Motivation Solutions. Sodexo is the inventor of a new activity that it exercises by encouraging its teams' self-fulfillment and the economic, social and environmental development of the cities, regions and countries in which we operate.

www.sodexo.ca

For further information: Sophie Labelle, 514 282-4605, 514 778-4605 cell., [email protected]