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Funder Focus: Dana Britton and the Food First Foundation
By Elisa Birnbaum
October 1, 2007This month in our Funder Focus we feature the Food First Foundation. Based in Yellowknife and serving the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, it is a northern arm of Canadian Living Foundation’s Breakfast for Learning initiative. With a mandate of providing nutritional food to children in the region, the foundation fed 1,629 students in NWT and 2,334 in Nunavut last year alone. CharityVillage had the pleasure of speaking with coordinator Dana Britton about the foundation’s formidable achievements, daily challenges, and passionate mission.
CharityVillage: Food First Foundation has a unique structure. Can you explain how it began and how it works today?
Dana Britton: It’s actually part of a national organization called Breakfast for Learning that’s been around since 1991, dedicated to ensuring children don’t go to school hungry. The breakfast for learning model worked so well they wanted to expand it across Canada so they formed advisory councils. Each province and territory has a volunteer advisory council with the exception of Nunavut, which doesn’t have one yet. Each council hires a coordinator and, because Nunavut doesn’t have a council, I also work in Nunavut. Our council has been around since the Spring of 2004.
Prior to that, all applications for schools and any work that was done in the territories was done out of Toronto. But the organization feels very strongly about having local expertise on the ground because each region of Canada is so different in terms of the processes they need and where they’re at. So the organization is really unique; it’s organic because it’s very fluid and it really adapts to the situation on the ground. Just having our own advisory council here we’ve been able to do so much more in our territories. We know the schools more intimately so we can make a better decision about funding.
Nunavut faces a significant number of challenges, especially the sheer geography; it is daunting because they don’t have any roads between communities. So there are people in various departments and organizations working together to try and form an advisory council but it is slow going. But, this is the model that’s working right now.
CV: What is your relationship with Breakfast for Learning today?
DB: I’m an indirect employee of BFL and a direct employee of the advisory council. As you know, when it comes to fundraising, people want to know their dollars are going directly to programs. Breakfast For Learning sends out two different grants to each advisory council. One is the nutrition grant, which goes directly to schools to fund breakfast, lunch and snacks. The other is called the member development grant and it goes to council and the council uses that for any fundraising or administration activities. So when we fundraise in the territories, 100% of the donations go directly to the schools. It’s a really elastic scenario that works really well and is really innovative.
CV: What types of grants do you provide and how does the process work?
DB: First, any money raised locally stays local. For example, we had a couple of fundraisers recently each raising $3,000, all of which will stay in the NWT. And, anything we raise goes directly to nutrition grants to schools in the NWT and Nunavut depending on where people want their money. None of it goes to our own administration.
Nutrition is the catch-all phrase for breakfast, lunch and snack programs. We really work hard with the schools to make sure that the menus they serve are nutritionally sound and that we are addressing some of the nutritional issues facing kids in the NWT and Nunavut. For example, something like 70% of kids in NWT don’t get enough dairy products in the day and eat very little vegetables. It’s pretty shocking and those are the things that we’re addressing in the menus for the schools.
Our applicants for funding are schools, school boards, community centres etc. It’s the same model that comes from Toronto, with the idea that local knowledge is most important. The schools know what works best.
It’s important to note that, although we’re based out of Yellowknife, last year, for instance, out of the 20 programs we funded, we covered 18 different communities in the NWT and others in Nunavut. People don’t always realize that our reach extends well beyond the big city of Yellowknife. Our foundation has a really strong pan-territorial element.
CV: How are the funds helping the communities of NWT and Nunavut?
DB: One of the reasons we feel so strongly about our program is that our breakfast programs, for example, have been proven to get kids to school. What was happening before was that parents would either not send their kids to school because they had no food to send them with or the kids were too tired to go because they didn’t have a good dinner the night before. With the breakfast program, parents are finding that it's okay to send them to school without food cause they know they’ll be fed there.
That means kids are actually getting to school, which is step one. What we are finding from a territorial perspective is that one of the challenges is a lack of skilled workers. Keep in mind, you need to finish grade 10 to get a welding certificate, for example, but you need to keep a child in school till grade 10 first! So we’re hoping the long term effect of the nutrition program is that we will have an educated population.
Of course, they can concentrate better if they are fed. And, socially, it affects your life as well because if all the kids have a lunchbox except for you, it's hard. Also, one of the other things we’ve been doing more of is advocacy; we like to look at ways of getting food prices more equitable across the territories so people have the opportunity to buy food that is healthy and nutritious.
CV: Talking about challenges, what are the basic challenges facing the NWT and Nunavut today?
DB: NWT and Nunavut share some challenges, but they also diverge on some. A big one in NWT is definitely geography. Getting healthy food in a palatable condition to some of the smaller communities is expensive. What ends up happening is that people can’t afford to buy the exact foods that we want or what they do buy is unappealing. For instance, four litres of milk costs $17.
The socioeconomic situation is challenging too. It’s been reported that 70% of kids under the age of 17 were living in poverty in Paulatuk, NWT a few years ago. The other issue in the NWT is that, with the diamond mines, a lot of people are working two weeks in and then returning home for two, leaving their spouses and children behind. The social impact of that situation hasn’t been measured at all because it’s so new. But from a food security perspective, it’s probably the biggest issue that the NWT faces. And food security is a circular thing because it’s a direct result of poor economic conditions as well, and it’s a spiraling situation.
CV: What about the specific challenges the foundation faces that make it harder for you to do your job?
DB: Certainly geography makes it hard because I can’t just pop in and visit a program. It’s a challenge because it is nice to get your face known and deal one on one with people. Here in my territory, NWT and Nunavut, I’m representing a third of Canada’s landmass with three different time zones. So that’s huge.
And then, of course, there are cultural issues as well because I’m based in Yellowknife, which is to the territories what Toronto is to Canada, with many differences. Having said that, I can overcome that with my desire to help. Now that I’ve had a chance to visit the communities, it’s made a big difference in my relationships with those communities.
CV: Do you have any partnerships, aside from Breakfast for Learning?
DB: Our mandate is to tackle nutrition issues for school-aged children. Having said that, we have been partnering with organizations promoting active living, since they obviously go hand in hand. We pair active living with the nutrition message we’re putting out because those messages are so tied together in terms of overall wellness. And we would probably work more on that if we weren’t already stretched thin. We did some work with Sport North for instance, an organization that promotes and develops amateur sports in the Northwest Territories.
We also have a contribution agreement with the government of the NWT and we are using some of that money to produce a healthy canteen handbook. We want to make sure kids are offered healthy foods in the school setting and one of the places that appears to be falling down is with the canteens for sporting events, school celebrations etc. So, to get the message out in a readable format, we’re creating a handbook from which they can take what they want and what works for them. At least it gives them a starting point. I think what’s happening right now is people are trying desperately to feed their kids healthy foods but don’t know what those are. And then when you have a canteen that is trying to make money and you have processed food that’s easier to serve, it’s hard. We’re trying to give them some easier alternatives
Yet another partner is the Canadian Cancer Society, Alberta, NWT chapter. Last year, they gave us funding to put toward a program we have whose aim is to get kids to eat fruits and vegetables, especially in the outer lying communities where they don’t have them readily available. And we have a corporate sponsorship with Canadian North airlines. They travel between NWT and Nunavut so it works out well since they work with the very people that need the help. And they care deeply about food security.Prior to joining Food First Foundation, Dana spent her days enveloped in the world of art as the owner of a gallery. With the gallery sold, a strong interest in nutrition and well-honed skills in starting up a business, the opportunity at Food First seemed a perfect fit for this Vancouver native. Having lived in Yellowknife for many years, Dana has become strongly invested in the communities of Canada’s northern frontier and its ongoing challenge of food security. What better way to satisfy her passions than as the ambassador of Food First and its vital mission. For more information about the foundation, visit: www.foodfirst.ca.
Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance print and broadcast journalist living in Toronto.
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