The culinary arts program at R.B. Russell Vocational High School is working to feed students in their community while providing educational opportunities for all walks of life.
At R.B. Russell, they offer not only culinary arts programming for its high school students, but there is also an adult program that is tuition-free and gets the students Level 1 accredited. Both classes work hard to prepare nutritious meals to feed the students who would otherwise go to school hungry.
With their efforts, the school provides a free breakfast daily, as well as a subsidized lunch program where kids can get a lunch for $2.50 every day.
Chef Michael Lindberg oversees the adult program and said there has always been a need to provide students with a good nutritious meal, but with the rising grocery prices and financial struggles from inflation, the need goes up every day.
“We’re seeing a lot more students come hungry to school … prices are going up and people are struggling more. So obviously, there’s more demand for nutritious meals like we have here.”
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Lindberg said the meals offered are not the average cafeteria food.
“Every day it changes based on what we’re teaching in our curriculum. So not only are we feeding hungry students, we’re also meeting all the points of our curriculum in order to get our students apprenticed and accredited.”
In addition to the affordable meals, the vocational high school, which is in the Winnipeg School Division, hands out food hampers to all its families in need, bridging the gap from school to home.
Lorrie Guilbault, a community support worker for the division, helps get the hampers ready.
“We get a lot of requests from parents … they’ll call the school. Sometimes I have teachers that will let me know that a certain student is in need of a hamper,” Guilbault said.
She said items in hampers have doubled in price compared to this time last year.
Guilbault noted that R.B. Russell not only works to support the families at their school but every other school in the division as well. She said it provides families with food that they may not have.
“R.B. Russell Vocational School is the hub for the Winnipeg School Division. We have food security, which is every Tuesday. We have roughly 3,000 to 4,000 pounds of potatoes and sometimes onions delivered. Then other CSWs from the schools come and we box them.”
On top of the community supports for families, Lindberg said there is an enormous amount of vocational and educational opportunities for people who are looking for certification to move up in their career, or looking for new job paths altogether.
“Students that live within the Winnipeg School Division that want to source out health-care aid, early childhood educator, hairstyling … and then our program here, adults can take the program tuition-free if they live within the Winnipeg School Division.”
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