Student Nutrition Programs = Student Success

Student nutrition programs help create a healthy school nutrition environment. They are also a cost effective way to promote health and learning ...

Student nutrition programs help create a healthy school nutrition environment. They are also a cost effective way to promote health and learning among the students. Evidence suggests there is a direct correlation between eating good nutrition and how the students perform at school. 

Benefits for Students and Schools include:

  • Provides nutrients and energy so that students are ready to learn and participate in school
  • Better test scores in math, reading and science
  • Positive social behaviours
  • Creates healthier eating habits
  • Students have healthier body weights
  • Students are more alert
  • Students miss less school
  • Teachers can focus on educating

Benefits for the Parents include:

  • Inclusive of all children
  • Know their kids are eating healthy
  • Role modelling nutritious snacking

Benefits for Volunteers include:

  • Give back to their community
  • Contribute to future generations
  • More interactive with child’s school

Each student nutrition program is unique and a reflection of its community; they are operated in schools and community sites by volunteers and staff.

Look for opportunities to donate in more than 355 Ontario stores including Metro, Food Basics, Longo’s and participating independent grocery stores and markets between February 9th and 23rd, 2017. In western Canada, visit over 150 Save-On-Foods stores. All donations benefitting local student nutrition programs in the communities where the donations were made. You can also give online! You also help when you purchase the brands which are supporting Toonies for Tummies this year. See the full list here.

100% of proceeds raised from #Toonies4Tummies remain in the community in which they’re donated.

Our goal is to raise $850,000 during this two week campaign. Providing over 1.7 million health snacks and meals in schools across Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia.

feeding better futures!


We are a not-for-profit organization started in 1979 by leaders in Canada’s grocery industry. Our funding helps to ensure the 1.1 million school-aged children and youth who face food insecurity in communities across Canada have universal access to proper nutrition through student nutrition programs while at school.

*Adapted from the Ontario Student Nutrition Program (OSNP) and the Lambton Public Health website.

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We are so grateful to Canadians who support Toonies for Tummies during our annual store campaign and, year-round, online.

You may know on April 16th, the Federal Government confirmed plans to support student nutrition programs. Specifically, the budget has announced the creation of a National School Food Program, which will provide $1 billion over five years to Employment and Social Development Canada, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, and Indigenous Services Canada, starting in 2024‑25.

You may wonder what does this government funding mean specific to the need and our efforts to fundraise?

Without a doubt, we continue to need your support. While many student nutrition program leaders are encouraged by the incremental government support, many have taken to the news and social media to confirm even with this support, funding gaps will persist.

The Grocery Foundation's Vision, that no Canadian child goes to school hungry, remains fully intact. Our work continues and remains vital to support hungry children through their school’s student nutrition program. There is no change whatsoever in our focus, our mission, or our reliance on your support.

The programs we help fund are universal in nature. That means all children who require a healthy meal have access. Those on the front lines of these programs affirm their positive impact and positive halo beyond the day’s nutrition, from attendance, behaviours to the school community and mental health. The programs you help fund also support foundational nutrition knowledge and social skill building, as many programs include mechanisms for student involvement in menu planning, food preparation and serving of food to peers.

Thank you for choosing to support hungry children in your community, nourishing their health, well-being, academic success while fostering their school community. With your continued support, we will continue to help dreams take flight and nourish over 3,000 programs and neighbourhoods, yours among them.