It’s a collaborative effort between the Okanagan Fruit Tree Project and culinary classes at Okanagan College.
The team-up between the registered charity and college culinary students sees donated apples produced into healthy snacks for students in School District No. 23.
“It definitely wasn’t difficult to fit this project into the curriculum,” said Kelsey Oudendag, an Okanagan College culinary arts instructor.
The culinary students turn apples into different snacks for the young students, such as apple chips, cookies, granola and fruit leather.
The snacks are then given to Food For Thought, an Okanagan non-profit organization centered around eliminating hunger in children.
The snacks are then added to Food For Thought’s backpack and breakfast programs, providing meals for students at elementary, middle and secondary schools in the Central Okanagan Public Schools district.
“We typically deliver fresh produce directly to Food for Thought for their backpack and breakfast programming,” said Lucie Bardos, Okanagan Fruit Tree Project’s project coordinator.
“In this case, Okanagan College got involved to help transform the fresh apples into products before the fruit goes to Food for Thought.”
The breakfast meal program provides barely 3,000 meals directly to schools.
The backpack program is designed to cover food needs for the weekend for students and their families.