The irony of children going to school hungry in the heart of one of BC’s most acclaimed food and wine regions is not lost on Fatima Da Silva, chef-operator of the vineyard-based gourmet restaurant Vinoteca, just outside Duncan on Vancouver Island. Many would be surprised and appalled at the statistics showing the rate of child poverty in the Cowichan Valley to be among the highest in the province; Fatima was moved to direct action. She is the driving force behind a school meal program, which, in less than two years, has gone from providing breakfasts to 80 children in one school to serving over 900 children in nine schools. And more schools across the district are lining up to be included. In the process, with her two co-founders, Anita Carroll and Dina Holbrook, Fatima established Nourish Cowichan Society, a registered charity, inspired 30 volunteers and raised more than $200,000 from the local community.
Children are hungry. This was not something Fatima expected to hear in Canada. Yet, we are the only G8 country that does not have a national school food program (according to the World Food Program, Canada is ranked 37th of 41 countries in providing healthy food for children). Fatima has seen the effects of hunger first hand; when she immigrated to Canada 30 years ago, food insecurity and malnutrition rates in her home country, Mozambique, were over 50 per cent. But she was shocked when a Cowichan Valley principal described how many of his students lacked the focus to learn in class, how some couldn’t even muster the energy to play during recess because they hadn’t eaten a nutritional meal in days.
For Fatima this is about, “basic nutrition. It’s not a privilege, it’s a right.”
In her 50s, when many of us are looking towards retirement as well-deserved me time, Fatima is unabashedly empire building, setting her sights on an expansive school food program replete with an on-site commercial kitchen, school gardens and food literacy programs for parents and teachers, as well as school children. She is the powerhouse behind an effort that has caught the valley by storm, bringing together volunteers, businesses and the school district to respond to a national issue at the local grassroots level.
Nourish is wholly run by volunteers. The Board does all the administrative and organizational work, much of it landing on the shoulders of Fatima and Anita (President and Board Secretary, respectively). This is in addition to the core business – food preparation. Fatima is the hands-on manager, chief cook and bottle washer working with a small cadre of volunteers (including the occasional conscription of her restaurant staff). The two-days-per-week production schedule is organized by function, reflecting the constraints of the small kitchen space: one day to make between 350–500 muffins, 200–250 waffles, and assorted jams, sauces and dips; the next day to prepare and assemble sandwiches, burritos and snack packs. Her time commitment to Nourish runs over 30 hours per week.
Anita describes Fatima as having a huge heart and a wicked sense of humour. “She’s a lovely woman who wants to make a difference.”
As a community nurse and public health educator, Anita was able to add specifics about the effects of poverty and hunger on children: falling asleep in class; coming late to school; suffering stomach pains; and being easily agitated, with poor follow through. She has seen a kindergarten child “eat leaves and twigs because he was so hungry.”
Fatima’s response: “What kind of breakfast do they need?”
It is a running joke with her friends and staff that Fatima, emphatically not a morning person, who like many restaurant people often doesn’t go to bed ’til long after midnight, and with no children of her own, found herself the first few weeks getting up before six in the morning to make breakfast for nearly 100 school children. That first dark winter morning en route to the kitchen, “I cursed all the way driving in!”
Growing up in Mozambique, Fatima says living in a community meant taking care of each other. “No way would you see your neighbour starving.” She found that same commitment in her new Canadian parents who share her birth mother’s philosophy, “to be a better person every day.” Their support, and their expectations, are integral to Fatima’s success in the Nourish project – and in life – and are part of the foundation underpinning her deep faith in humanity. She is amazed at the conversation this project has started in the community, and her conviction that people will step up when they see the need has been more than confirmed. One of the Nourish Board members asked her to imagine a time when people say that children used to go to school hungry. Fatima’s eyes light up as she considers the potential, “What if this is the community that will make that change?”
One of the greatest challenges, aside from the sheer logistics and constraints of providing all that food from a small kitchen with only volunteers and no formal infrastructure, is the emotional rollercoaster of the work. She tries to stay away from the individual stories and the immensity of the problem, but sometimes it’s hard. Early on, one day alone in the kitchen prepping before the volunteers arrived, she was overcome with the realization that the children might not, probably did not, know that there was a community out there – this group of individuals, volunteers, supporters and businesses – who cared about them.
“That crushed me,” she says. “How do you have hope if nobody tells you they care about you?” The answer came the next day when a volunteer relayed the story of how a student had told her that he was only coming to school for the breakfast. This is what sustains Fatima. “He knows there’s a grandma out there who’s going to bring him food.”
These days Fatima isn’t cursing on the drive into the kitchen, she’s singing. “I’m working more, sleeping less, singing more!”
To learn more about Nourish Cowichan Society, visit www.NourishCowichan.ca
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