Volkszanger names a program that provides healthy food to NS children in rural areas
HALIFAX – A Nova Scotia folk singer lends his name to a program that provides healthy nutrition to students in rural schools in the province, saying he wants to raise awareness of an often unseen problem.
Dave Gunning’s music includes tunes such as “Coal From the Train” – co-written with artist Bruce Gouthro – with lyrics describing how Gunning’s grandfather would shovel coal from his passing train onto the properties of people struggling to make their homes in Pictou County to heat.
Now the Pictou County artist is becoming the sponsor of a fundraiser to set up centers — known as School Free Stores — that will supply rural schools in Nova Scotia with food and supplies. He says he plans to advocate for charity as he tours folk festivals across the country, adding that the song about his grandfather will give him a chance to name the fundraiser.
“It fits perfectly with the cause. If everyone scoops a little coal from the train, they can help,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.
The Rural Communities Foundation of Nova Scotia, which administers the program, says child poverty in the province is most acute in rural areas. Data from Statistics Canada for 2020 shows that the child poverty rate was 26 percent in Annapolis County, 27 percent in Digby County and 22 percent in Cape Breton Victoria County. The figure for the urban county of Halifax is about 16 percent.
Gunning said he began to understand the problem when his teacher wife, Sara Delong-Gunning, told him about children not getting a healthy lunch at her school in Pictou County. Like many of her colleagues, she regularly brought extra food to work to feed children.
“Occasionally we have to lift our heads and look around and see how many people are struggling,” he said.
Teacher Jessica Fancy-Landry said in an interview Tuesday that at a rural school in New Germany, NS — where she was the principal — about 500 students used the feeding program in recent years. Fancy-Landry, the president of the Rural Communities Foundation, said she sees a growing need for the nonprofit’s school program.
“The fact is, kids come to school and their bellies are hungry, and as an educator, action needs to be taken,” she said.
Lesley Frank, co-author of the 2022 report on child and family poverty in Nova Scotia – published by the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives – says the long-term solution is to increase the incomes of parents and carers.
Frank, a sociologist at Acadia University, said in an interview Tuesday that as long as all levels of government don’t focus on a “patchy” social safety net in Nova Scotia, programs like the School Free Stores will remain a “stopgap.” .
“School staff and parents and volunteers and community members are filling the gap and the cost of food is getting more and more expensive,” she said.
The report, co-authored by Frank, said the number of children in Nova Scotia in Nova Scotia fell from 24.3 percent in 2020 to 18.4 percent in 2020 — largely due to pandemic-related financial aid that boosted poor families’ incomes. But when the pandemic ended and payments stopped, income and food insecurity returned, especially in rural areas, she said.
“We have income assistance rates that keep poor families about $15,000 (annually) below the poverty line,” she said.
Still, she commends Gunning for supporting the wider cause of raising awareness of food shortages. “Hopefully this will drive the need for broader solutions,” she said. “It’s breaking open the stories of people’s daily lives and showing them to other people.”
A spokeswoman for Nova Scotia’s Department of Community Services said the government has taken steps to reduce child poverty. In an email, Christina Deveau noted that there was an $8 million increase to Nova Scotia’s child support for the 2023-24 fiscal year, adding that new rates took effect July 1.
In the past two years, the annual payment for families with the lowest income level has increased by $600 per child to $1,525, she wrote. There was also a $3.5 million increase in support for children with disabilities.
However, the province faced criticism from anti-poverty groups for its latest budget, which froze most welfare levels at the current rate despite more than a year of high inflation.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 4, 2023.
