Local Food Bags

We hate the idea of elementary students being sent through neighbourhoods selling chocolates door to door to fund school projects.  It really isn't modeling good eating habits.  To counter this, the Screaming Avocados teamed up with local farmers, producers and Slow Food Perth County to provide a healthy alternative that would benefit our community as a whole. 

The local bags contained fresh produce, cheese, eggs and yogurt.  Our farmer friend Laurie Neubrand went to auction and bought all the produce needed at market value.  Greg Hanlon from Saputo helped with the cheese and Merrick Burr of Festival City Dairy with the eggs and cream.  Without these incredible people the idea wouldn't have got off the ground.

The Bedford Public School students eagerly sold them and with the help of Brian Shypula of the  Beacon Herald and Eddie Matthews at CJCS Radio the word got out to the community at large.  In one short week 318 bags were sold to the Stratford community - fantastic for a first run!  For every ten bags sold, one was donated to the House of Blessing Food Bank which resulted in hundreds of pound of fresh food to accompany the successful city wide food drive the night before.  All proceeds from the sale of the local bags are being used to feed hungry kids at Bedford Public School.

The idea worked and plans are in place to open it to more schools early next fall.  Thank-you to everyone who made it a great success.  Please see the links to the articles below.  If you live in a different community and want support on how you can run of these in your school community please contact us.

The Screaming Avocados


Stratford Beacon Herald - Local produce a winning idea
http://stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=2872917

Stratford Beacon Herald - Food baskets sold by school
http://stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=2858342