BACKGROUND
Across Ontario, and particularly in Windsor and Essex County (WEC), inadequate nutrition among children and youth remains a significant public health challenge requiring coordinated policy action. Between 2023 and 2024, 25.7% of people in Windsor-Essex were living in a food-insecure households. Further, in 2023, 12.9% of children 1 to 17 years old in WEC lived in food-insecure households. Low-income households tend to have competing demands for scarce resources and spend less money on food compared to higher-income counterparts, making access to food out of reach for many families. Poor nutrition has serious consequences, including short-term impacts on students’ academic success, mental well-being, overall growth and development, and causes increased rates of costly nutrition-related illnesses over time.
Families are struggling, which is why a comprehensive, evidence informed, community-based school food strategy is vital for our community. While school food programs are not a replacement for robust income security measures to directly address household food insecurity, they are a key component of a comprehensive social support system: they reduce children’s hunger during school hours, relieve pressure from household budgets, and improve the diets of children and youth across socio-economic backgrounds.
The Ontario Student Nutrition Program (OSNP) is a government-supported initiative that provides nutritious food, such as breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, to school-age children and youth to help them learn, develop healthy eating habits, and feel a sense of belonging at school. The universal program is delivered during school hours, through a network of schools and community partners, relying on volunteers to provide meals and support students' physical, social, and academic development. This program operates under a cost-shared funding model comprising two primary sources:
- OSNP Grant: Start-up funding that consolidates all OSNP-administered contributions, including federal, provincial, regional, and locally raised funds.
- School-Generated Funds: Schools are responsible for supplementing their programs through local fundraising efforts to ensure adequate financial and material resources.
This model presents an inherent challenge, as schools with the highest levels of need often lack the fundraising capacity to sustain their programs at the required level. Further, current decision making about which schools receive what amount of funding is done largely in isolation of local collaboration with local public health units. In addition, local not-for-profits have been conducting school lunch pilot projects which operate at the same time as OSNP programs. Rather than filling gaps in service (afterschool, weekends and holidays), these programs are duplicating services. There is also limited, if any, funding from local municipal governments to support school food programs, leaving this sustainable funding source as an unused resource.
On October 10, 2025, the federal government announced that they will be introducing legislation to make the National School Food Program permanent. On that same day, the Ontario government announcement an additional $5 million of funding for this school year. These commitments to school food are welcomed, and very promising, but require a local perspective that is not the current practice.
The Windsor-Essex Food Strategy, endorsed by the Board of Health in June 2024, provides a framework of actions that can support neighbourhood focused initiatives that centre around schools identified by the WECHU, in consultation with the local school boards. The Windsor-Essex Food Policy Council can support these coordinated approaches, as we utilize school food programs to transform the local food system and provide significant opportunities to elevate the health, economy, and the food environment for all.
PROPOSED MOTION
Whereas, food insecurity affects approximately 1 in 4 households in WEC; and
Whereas, the current model for Ontario Student Nutrition Program funds does not include a locally driven, evidence-informed strategy, and does not prioritize recommendations and insight of local schools, boards and the WECHU; and
Whereas, opportunities for funding food programs outside of OSNP in schools are sporadic, time-limited, disconnected from risk-based food strategies, and not driven by local evidence of food insecurity needs in our school communities;
Whereas, the Windsor-Essex Food Policy Council network of local food system representatives can work to implement food strategy recommendations at the neighbourhood level;
Whereas, the WECHU, the Greater Essex County District School Board and the Windsor Catholic District School Board have prioritized a coordinated approach to addressing food insecurity in schools;
Now therefore be it resolvedthat the Windsor-Essex County Board of Health calls on the provincial government to review the current funding algorithm used in programs like the Ontario Student Nutrition Program, to ensure that local evidence informed strategy is upheld, led through insights of the local public health unit and school boards;
FURTHER THAT, local not-for-profit and community service organizations working to support food security strategies, focus on programming in high priority communities, specifically outside of school settings, with a key goal of addressing larger community-based food needs;
FURTHER THAT, local not-for-profit and community service organizations working to support food security strategies, focus on programming in high priority communities, for students and families during periods when school food programs are inaccessible (during non-school months and breaks, evenings, and weekends);
FURTHER THAT, local school boards, in consultation with the WECHU, be given the lead role in decision making and allocation of funding (new and current) for school-based food programs, to ensure a more coordinated and evidence informed local approach, reducing duplication of efforts, and utilizing existing key local data and school informed insights;
FURTHER THAT, the Windsor-Essex Food Policy Council prioritize the creation of evidence informed programs that improve physical access to foods in neighbourhoods surrounding the highest needs schools;
FURTHER THAT, the Windsor-Essex County Board recommends that local municipalities dedicate funding to sustainable food programming in schools, guided by evidence need at the recommendation of local public health and school boards.