“I don’t want to deny any kid. Being the person on the front line who has to say no to their faces is heartbreaking.”
Tammy Mojtahedpour has been the child and youth worker at Maple Ridge’s Glenwood Elementary since 2017.
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Back then, she was tasked with finding lunch for 20 children. Eight years later, she needs to feed 100.
Mojtahedpour is more than grateful for the community help she is getting to do this, but today’s demands on charitable resources are so great there often isn’t enough to go around, she says.
On Mondays, she gets 80 donated lunches from Salvation Army volunteers. The families of those missing out have to do what they can to provide their children with something to eat.
Some go hungry.
On Tuesdays to Fridays, the school receives 77 lunches each day as part of the provincial Feeding Futures program.
Like the Monday lunches, the number is capped, but it’s a buffet-style lunch so she is able to portion out the food so all those who are hungry are fed.
Some of those lunches come from Humble Roots, a local cafe-deli on 224th Street.
“Anytime they have extra, they throw it into my buffet, which is super kind,” she said.
The shortfalls nevertheless are painful.
“I don’t want to deny any kid. Being the person on the front line who has to say no to their faces is heartbreaking,” Mojtahedpour said. “I never thought I would have to be the one putting kids on a waitlist to have their most basic need fulfilled.”
On top of this, the school has lost its backpack program which sent weekend food home for impoverished families after donations to the program dried up.
Mojtahedpour says the number of Maple Ridge families falling into poverty is growing.
“Each year, the needs of families grow substantially as does the cost of living, which in turn is creating severe poverty for many of Glenwood’s population. I would place at least 60 per cent under the vulnerable category, compared to 40 per cent last year.”
She has snacks and fruit and cereal on hand in her room to feed children coming to school hungry, and some children, especially on Mondays, take every opportunity to eat — a probable sign of their not having eaten much over the weekend.
In November, she ran out of emergency gift cards that she was using to help families when there was no food in the home and no money to buy any.
“In the past, we’ve been able to help them. They probably panic now when they pick up the phone. I know I would if I was going through every resource. And we are not the first people they call. We’re probably the last.”
She needs $20,000 from The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-A-School campaign in order to provide food and basic necessities until the end of school in June.
The cost of food and rent is crippling some families, she says.
“I can’t imagine paying $1,800 a month for a basement suite if you were (a single parent) on social assistance and receiving child benefits. That’s almost the whole of your paycheque.
“As a mom, I’m so thankful I have this job and I’m blessed my husband has a good job,” she said. “But if I was a single mother, I’d have to have a second job and I’d be utilizing programs like this myself.”
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