Entrepreneurial Students Launch “We Blend,” Serving Up Fun and Nutritious Snacks at School

Pierre Elliott Trudeau Elementary School (PETES), Gatineau, QC
Grant term, 2024-2025

We are an urban K-6 school with a diverse population of approximately 540 students located on traditional Algonquin territory in Gatineau, Quebec in the National Capital Region of Canada. Despite the challenges we have faced in terms of the ongoing construction and renovations to our school, the grant has provided us with hope and inspiration in terms of utilizing the potential new environment we will all be experiencing going forward into the next school year. Our school environment has been completely transformed, allowing us to embrace a new philosophy and involve more hands-on learning, project-based learning, sustainability education, and skills acquisition.

Our student-led project, which the grant allowed us to develop, involves a small group of grade 5 and 6 students with an entrepreneurial spirit, who wanted to promote healthy lifestyle choices, nutrition, environmental awareness and have some fun along the way. “We Blend” became a small student-led venture, a smoothie bar with blenders, to serve our school healthy snack choices at school functions and events, with the aim of having it as a permanent lunchtime fixture for our students and staff. The intent is to source local fruit, vegetables, and products like local maple syrup. Another long-term goal of “We Blend” is to tie into and collaborate with other pending school projects such as hydroponic gardening and small-scale land-based gardening in our school yard.

The staff who supported this venture and were pivotal in its success were: Melissa Nascimento, Catherine Lesage and our Community Development Agent, Jennifer McNeil (who I recently replaced). Our school Chef, Chef Joy, has also been integral and an educational goldmine. Our entire school staff and administration have embraced the project and it has been a fantastic journey for both staff and students. The learning has been significant, and the experience, invaluable. We are certainly looking forward to next year.

In response to a question I posed to Isabel, a grade 5 student and founding member of “We Blend” – What is the impact this project could have on the students at our school? She answered: “It’s going to promote healthy eating, healthy lifestyles and it’s fun working with other students in the school!” Another student involved in the venture, Payton (grade 6) remarked: “We identified a need in the school to provide students with healthy food choices. This project can help with that.”