BROOKDALE, N.S. – Kids at Cumberland North Academy are helping Cumberland County eat local produce.
“We packed carrots, apples, squash, potatoes, beets, onions, and little pumpkins,” Ethan Brundage, a Grade 5 student at CNA, said.
The CNA student council packed 200 boxes for the Nourish Your Roots program before the thanksgiving weekend.
This is the third year they’ve participated in the program with all the food grown by local farmers, and each box costing $30.
“Some of the money goes to pay farmers for their produce, some of the money goes to Feed Nova Scotia, and the rest of the money goes to our breakfast program,” Cathy Wells, principal at CNA, said. “We get $8 per box for the breakfast program, so this year it added up to about $1,600.”
The boxes are pre-sold ruing a two-week period in September and are either picked up or delivered to people who purchase the boxes.
The kids definitely look forward to packing the boxes, and they talk about the different vegetables that they haven’t tried before,” Wells said, adding that the cafeteria is given samples of the produce to cook for the kids.
Ethan, along with his Grade 5 friends Colin Murphy and Rylan Blakeney, said it was fun taking an hour and a half out of their morning schedule to pack the boxes.
“It was way better than French,” they said.