One day following NPA mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe's pledge to tackle child hunger in Vancouver, rival Vision Vancouver has promised more money to support food programs for the city’s school children.
LaPointe said his passion for the social issue is born out of his own experiences with poverty as the child of a struggling single mother.
“She’d get paid on a Thursday night … so we’d have food Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” LaPointe told Business in Vancouver in a recent interview.
“But by Monday the cupboard would be getting bare and by Tuesday and Wednesday I was living on things like peanut butter or butter and sugar sandwiches, which were quite common back then.”
If elected mayor, LaPointe wants to work with other organizations to make sure no child in Vancouver goes to school hungry.
On September 18, Vision Vancouver announced the city would invest $400,000 to expand the Vancouver School Board’s breakfast program. The party said the funds would double the reach of the current program to cover 1,300 children in Vancouver. The program currently serves 650 school children and has a shortfall of $60,000.
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