Organizers of an elementary school healthy foods program are worried that without support, the program may not spread to include other schools in the district.
Francine Ulmer is a parent volunteer who helps organize the Farm to School program at James Thomson Elementary School. The program has run since 2011 and James Thomson is the only school in School District 47 with the program.
According to the Public Health Association of BC the goal of Farm to School is to connect elementary schools with local farms and improve student access to fresh, local, nutritious, safe and culturally appropriate foods while at school.
Ulmer said a lot of the success that James Thomson has had running Farm to School, setting up a school garden and fundraising for a community kitchen at the school, has come from the support of Vanessa Sparrow, a Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) community developer.
“She did an enormous amount of work for our program,” she said, adding that without support from VCH, they wouldn’t have qualified to receive the $7,500 Farm Credit Canada AgriSpirit grant that went toward building the school’s kitchen.
Sparrow’s work was not just supporting James Thomson’s programs. According to Ulmer she was also in the process of helping other schools in the district set up gardens and develop their own Farm to School programs.
But that’s all in jeopardy now, according to Ulmer, after VCH notified Sparrow that she will be laid off in December.
“It was so out of the blue,” said Ulmer. “It’s a sad loss for the community. I know that she spent a lot of time building relationships, creating capacity to take on projects and has done a lot of foundational work. I know there are a lot of schools interested in Farm to School.”
She said Sparrow had recently asked her to help make a presentation on the experience that James Thomson volunteers had had at other schools.
Ulmer understands these cuts are the result of a budget crunch, but she questions the thinking behind cuts to prevention programs that help save health authorities money in the long term.
The Peak contacted Sparrow but she declined to comment.
Viola Kaminski, media spokesperson at VCH, said the health authority has been in the process of reducing the number of community developer positions since 2010.
“VCH always reviews its services to create greater efficiencies and ensure the sustainability of essential clinical services,” she said. “For this reason, we couldn’t justify funding the remaining community developer positions throughout VCH since they didn’t provide direct health care in a clinical capacity.”
Kaminski said managers from the health authority will continue to participate in joint table and team meetings with community partners and transitional plans are in place to make sure “projects already underway are seen through to the end.”
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