Flourish! School Food Society, Vancouver Island, BC
Grant term, 2025-2026
Flourish! School Food Society is a registered non-profit charity that works to bring nourishing change to the way students eat and learn about food in schools in the Capital Region of southern Vancouver Island. We help build nourishing school meal programs for all students that are supported by curriculum connected, experiential learning opportunities in school gardens, kitchens and composts.
We imagine a region in which all students can access nourishing food and learn through immersion in all aspects of food (growing, harvesting, preparing, sharing, composting).
Our Mission is to support: efficient, nourishing school food services; hands-on food literacy programming, and; development of nourishing food environments in schools.
Flourish provides four key services to schools:
- Fun, nourishing meals. Following mother nature’s guidance we create diverse, seasonal and youth friendly menus and prepare and distribute over 1300 home cooked meals daily.
- Food aggregation and distribution. We provide breakfast staples, snacks and other thoughtfully sourced grocery items to support school breakfast and snack programs.
- Food literacy. We support school gardens and hands-on food learning. We also continue to learn about and share promising school food practices.
- Family food support. We help distribute surplus rescued foods and other community foods via regular family food markets in schools and through the production and distribution of ready-made frozen meals.
Farm to Cafeteria Canada supported Flourish in the 2025/26 school year with a School Food Infrastructure Grant. This grant was used to purchase a new to us Ford Transit cargo van and to install a new reefer unit on the back of this van (the van is second from left in the photo of our vehicle fleet). The support has been critical in helping us expand to support more schools across our region. The additional vehicle has given us the confidence to grow relationships with new schools like Victoria High School and to begin engaging the Saanich School District in detailed discussions about collaborating to aggregate and distribute food more efficiently across their district.
Parents appreciate our program for a lot of different reasons. They write:
- My child is a very picky eater, and he has tried more new foods this year as a result of the lunch program than ever before.
- It has made our lives so much easier! And our kid actually eats his lunch. This means a kid that learns better and is less cranky.
- This program is a tremendous help to us. Our son gets a great variety of healthy food and it saves us precious time getting ready in the morning.
School staff also appreciate our program. The write:
- The nutritious options available are really good for students and they enjoy them. This does support their learning. With there not being any stigma attached to obtaining food, this is helpful to accessibility and ensuring all students can get the support.
- I find that in my role it’s a great way to connect with kids. It gives me insight into the needs of families and provides a foundation for learning. We get to know what some of the kids prefer and can track down the kids to tell them that it’s available that day.
- School lunch makes our jobs as teachers possible. For some students it is absolutely critical and we SO appreciate it. We had students before who were hungry and their behaviour was huge from this.
- Fed kids are happy/engaged kids. Kids sharing meals creates meaningful connections and having our grade 5 students helping with the program has been really positive, they’re building leadership skills and taking a sense of pride in their school.
To learn more about Flourish, visit: www.flourishschoolfood.ca
