By Dan Robson
In the freezing chill of morning, two young students waddle like penguins down Cambridge Street.
Slippery snow lines the walkway, daring the puffy-marshmallows to take one errant step – and face the cold wrath of icy asphalt. The journey is long, but they make it to the frosty front doors of Cambridge Street Public School together.
Inside, their cold fingers are greeted with the comforting warmth of steaming hot chocolate.
Their empty stomachs are satisfied with freshly scrambled eggs and crisp toast.
Soon other frigid voyagers straggle in from the cold and join them at the table.
The friends of the Breakfast Club meet here every morning, chatting schoolyard politics and devouring breakfast before classes begin.
Cambridge is one of the Ottawa-Carleton school board’s 25 beacon schools – a term used to describe high-needs elementary schools, which are typically located in impoverished neighborhoods with significant immigrant populations.
Principal Kim Nelson says that the Breakfast Club has become an incredibly important program at Cambridge.
Every day around 25 students arrive at school early and fill-up on a healthy breakfast to start their day.
The Ottawa Centre for Research and Information (OCRI) developed the Breakfast Program as an initiative to provide nutritional breakfasts for students in need. The Executive Director of Education at OCRI, Kathy McKinlay, says there are currently 8,880 students in 132 schools across Ottawa which use the program.
She says the school boards decide which schools require the program, and local charities and companies provide funding for the food.
“We try very hard to make it a fun social event. It’s open to any child in the school who needs breakfast that day,” McKinley says.
At Cambridge, a celebration of culture is apparent immediately upon entering the century-old redbrick building.
In the lobby, the word “office” is displayed in many of the 29 languages spoken by the school’s 170 students.
A monthly newsletter is sent home at the end of each month – with translations in Cantonese and Vietnamese, the school’s two most prominent first-languages. Nelson smiles as she explains that Cambridge is home to students who have traveled to Canada from around the globe – including 19 who are recent refuges from Burma.
Unfortunately, the blessing of such rich diversity also presents socio-economic obstacles and creates legitimate concerns about child nutrition.
Statistics Canada reports that between 1992 and 2004 low-income rates among new immigrants were as much as 3.5 times higher than those of Canadian-born people.
And recent studies point to a troubling link between low socio-economic status and poor child nutrition.
In 2005, Statistics Canada reported that children who live in neighbourhoods with higher unemployment rates and lower average family incomes are more likely to be overweight and are generally less healthy than children living in more affluent homes.
Long Ly is a fifth grade teacher at Cambridge, and the school’s volleyball coach.
While dodging wayward volleyballs during practice, he says many local families are struggling with the obstacles of being a newcomer, as most parents work unmanageable hours to make ends meet.
He says they don’t have time to adequately monitor their children’s eating habits.
“A lot of the time they are just given money, or are left to fend for themselves,” he says. “Any snacks they do have are usually not very healthy.”
Ly says that recently students have been bringing packages of Mr. Noodles to school, crunching up the contents and eating the noodles dry.
The snacks are relatively inexpensive for families. A box of 24 packages costs around $8. Ly says teachers have discussed banning the unhealthy MSG-packed snacks—but he sees social value in the product’s popularity.
“It’s a communal thing with the kids,” he says. “A kid with a package can bring it to school, and everyone will come up asking for a handful – they’ll actually share it. And every single kid can afford it.”
After discussing healthy food items with a small group of talkative first-grade students, Kim Christie, an ESL teacher, heads outside to face the chaos of recess.
Over high-pitched squeals and boisterous shouting, she says that although there has been an increase of unhealthy prepackaged food in lunches, she feels most of her students eat relatively well.
She says many bring meals that are traditional to their cultures, which are usually healthy dishes.
“A lot of parents send hot lunches – hot rice, noodles, and home baked things,” she says. “The multiculturalism is a really good thing at this school.”
Student’s slip and slide through the snowy recess. They munch on a diverse assortment of snacks – from squash-loaf, to samosa and Mr. Noodles.
It takes fuel to power their reckless tomfoolery.
Packed tightly in snowsuits, looking like a youthful faction of oompa-loopas, the students of Cambridge bring life to the street. They don’t seem bothered by the sub-zero chill of the relentless wind.
Here 29 languages and multitude of cultures mesh into one unmistakable chorus of youthful innocence.
And tomorrow two members of this choir will, once again, waddle down the frozen street, past the snow banks, and up the icy stairs to the frosted doors of Cambridge. In the comfort of the Breakfast Club, they’ll sip their steaming hot chocolate, eat an early morning feast, and relax with friends from across the globe.