Stunt Summer Sessions #5: Hunger Doesn't Disappear In The Summer

In Episode 78, Martin kicks things off with a round of “Happy Birthday” for Roy before the duo dives into a mid-summer reality check. With back-to-school ads already hitting the media, the Stunt Brothers remind listeners not to let summer slip away just yet! Continuing their Summer Series, Roy shares his #3 pick: Episode 38, Feeding Our Kids One Backpack At A Time. This inspiring episode features Joanne Griffiths, who co-founded Backpack Buddies alongside her daughter, Emily-Anne King. It’s a powerful conversation that hits close to home and proves how two people with a shared vision can make a genuine difference in the fight against child food insecurity.

Learn more at stuntbrothers.ca

Get Involved

• Rate & Review on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/after-the-bell-a-stunt-brothers-production/id1788804386
• Rate & Review on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0OD77C1YjJOjwwBfsnnu1u 
• Follow the show with our Facebook Group:          https://www.facebook.com/groups/941827558047720/
• Visit our website: https://stuntbrothers.ca/

Transcript

Speaker 4 0:05

Good afternoon, podcast listeners everywhere. Welcome to After the Bell, a Stunt Brothers production.

Speaker 6 0:11

I'm Martin Stuible. And I'm Roy Hunt, and we share your pain, having taught a combined 70 years. 70 years. I know. Wow. So get out your marking, organize your supplies, or just pour yourself a coffee. I think I need something stronger. That's okay. Okay. And listen, engage, and interact with After the Bell, a podcast for you, the hardworking, dedicated teacher who wants free lesson plans, free advice, and a free meal. Well, I always show up for a free meal.

Speaker 4 0:41

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear stunt brother. Happy birthday to Roy, who's 32.

Speaker 6 0:50

32. That rhymes. It does. My birthday was yesterday.

Speaker 4 0:54

It was yesterday. It was yesterday. It was and I I witched you.

Speaker 6 0:56

And you did which mean uh happy birthday.

Speaker 4 0:59

But last week you kind of said it was in a week, so I think listeners expected it to be a big thing. Maybe exactly seven days. Yeah, it was actually six days. Yeah. So anyway.

Speaker 6 1:08

You know, it's just all days kind of blend in the room.

Speaker 4 1:11

Looking mighty old for 32.

Speaker 6 1:14

I know. How old is that teacher? 32. I'm I'm out. New teachers are like, that guy over there is 32. He says, I'm sorry, I have to find a new job already. Yeah, right. But I'm not a young looking 32.

Speaker 4 1:32

No, but you look great for 100.

Speaker 6 1:35

Which is what some of the younger kids are like, oh, you must be a hundred. Because it looks like a big number from where I'm sitting, buddy.

Speaker 4 1:46

And where we're sitting at is the end of July, right? Oh. Yes. You still have half the summer. You still do. But you know what it's like. You start thinking about school, because you start to hear those back-to-school ads.

Speaker 6 1:59

Oh, they've they started a week ago.

Speaker 4 2:01

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: They did, right? And you go, I don't want to hear those.

Speaker 6 2:07

Please please stop. And the kid and and if you have younger kids that are getting like, when are we going to go get our back to school clothes? And when are we going to get our school supplies? Oh my gosh.

unknown 2:17

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 4 2:17

Yeah. It's just outrageous. So don't go there yet. It's still July.

Speaker 6 2:23

Hold up. Hold on. Still a long way.

Speaker 4 2:26

And we're still a long way to get to our end of our each of us our top five.

Speaker 6 2:31

Yes.

Speaker 4 2:31

Right? So we've been doing the top five. We've each have done enough five. And we've done our four.

Speaker 6 2:37

And now it's uh I'm doing my three.

Speaker 4 2:39

You're third. What's number three on your list?

Speaker 6 2:42

My uh third one is from episode thirty-eight, and it's uh feeding our kids uh one backpack at a time.

Speaker 4 2:51

That was a good one.

Speaker 6 2:52

And it was a really good one. And and uh we uh were with Joanne Griffiths, uh who co-founded Backpack Buddies in 2012, along with her daughter uh Emily Ann King. And uh I was just amazed. You know, they feed 6,000 uh students every week. And uh last year they delivered 1.6 uh million meals to children in 73 different communities.

Speaker 4 3:17

Yeah, and keep them in mind if you do have a little extra money you can make up for a donation, because I think they're really a worthwhile group and hunger isn't just a Christmas in the winter things going on every day, every day and food insecurity is an issue that I think with uh the the cost of food rising and uh and uh uh different conditions going on uh uh for for families that uh you you notice it more the the need uh uh for food, kids uh asking for more uh constantly. Yeah. So let's have another field trip to go uh back to this place that does this wonderful job of feeding kids. And we actually went for a tour of their facility.

Speaker 6 4:03

I think what we should do is we should volunteer for a day and just uh fill some bags for the kids. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 4:11

Let's do that and let's uh have a have a good listen, everyone, and we hope you're continuing to enjoy your summer. Mr. Hunt.

Speaker 6 4:21

Mr. Stuble.

Speaker 4 4:22

Episode thirty-eight.

Speaker 6 4:23

Thirty-eight.

Speaker 4 4:24

Season two, episode eight. Yeah, you got the pattern.

Speaker 6 4:28

Season two, eight.

Speaker 4 4:29

Well done. There you go. Yeah. So here we are. We're heading into October, and uh how how are things?

Speaker 6 4:35

Things are going well. I think we have uh pretty nice I know you know it's funny, our listeners probably would be up to if we didn't talk about the weather.

Speaker 4 4:43

I know, but it's always confusing because the weather changes so much. So they hear us talk about how nice it is, and then they hear the episode on Monday and it's pouring rain. Or else we do the opposite. Oh, it's so cold, winter's here, and then they go, What are those guys talking about?

Speaker 6 4:56

Well but today's uh pretty nice day. Uh it started out really cloudy, but for some reason the clouds just shot across the sky early this morning.

Speaker 4 5:05

It's sunny and clear, a little cool, but uh I still cultivated a final zucchini from my garden. And I shared it with you, my friend. My last little zucchini I gave to you. It's the little guy.

Speaker 6 5:19

Yes.

Speaker 4 5:19

Yeah. But we have been talking on our website and on Facebook and our Facebook group, uh Stunt Brothers Teaching with a Twist, and other places we've been talking about food insecurity. Yes. Because we it's something we've read about. It's an issue all across the world for a variety of reasons. Um inflation is a big part of it, lack of supplies, there's so many issues going on. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 6 5:42

Things are costly out there.

Speaker 4 5:43

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: They are costly out there. There's what CBC just did a segment on food deserts. Okay. And there's there's less and less grocery stores actually out there, too. So a lot of smaller communities are forced to go to their local gas station for whatever things they can find there, which tends to be overly processed foods and things that just aren't good for you.

Speaker 6 6:02

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: To get fresh produce, you more or less need to have a vehicle or a bicycle or an e-bike, but you have to uh for many people, they have to travel a fair distance for it.

Speaker 4 6:16

Trevor Burrus, Jr. But what was wonderful, just in this CBC article or this discussion on the radio, there's a northern community where they actually have built some greenhouses, they have got funding, and they are actually growing more and more of their own food, and they're able to do that, and that's actually a way to deal with some of the food deserts that are out there. But it's been a concern of ours, and we thought we would do an episode on this topic. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 6 6:37

On food insecurity.

Speaker 4 6:38

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, and then to figure out what groups out there are helping with this issue. And we'll start with our you know, this is all focused on our province of British Columbia, but I think the things that we'll talk about in this episode are going to hit home whether you're resonating with the other. If you're in Australia, we have listeners all around the world and it will resonate with them when they hear, oh, that's just like what we're facing right now. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 6 7:00

Well, and and the the big discussion that we've had is being classroom teachers and having seen students with various amounts of food, oftentimes they will eat their lunch and and then want more or need more. So the schools I know when we f when I first started teaching, the schools had hot lunch programs.

Speaker 5 7:22

They were a hot lunch program.

Speaker 6 7:23

And it there seemed to be an abundance of programs within elementary schools and high schools that provided uh warm food.

Speaker 4 7:33

Yeah.

Speaker 6 7:34

And then somehow along the way those programs uh disappeared. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 4 7:38

Well the I mean the the terrible irony is it tends to happen when a province or a state hits a recession and obviously money goes down that they are receiving. So they cut things like that at a time when you need it more and more. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Exactly.

Speaker 6 7:52

Yes, and at a time probably you need it the most.

Speaker 4 7:54

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 6 7:55

And I know now that in in the schools here in in North Vancouver, the the government has provided schools, the Ministry of Education has provided schools with refrigerators. And so while they still are the schools that I've seen don't have a hot lunch program, they do have uh a program that provides snacks. They'll provide vegetables, carrots, and uh celery and boiled eggs that are refrigerated. But they're still not an abundant.

Speaker 4 8:33

Because it's uh it's sort of spreading out a thin layer to helping maybe as many jurisdictions, maybe rather than focusing on those that need, and that's always a debate, too. Yes. Right. Do you just focus on the need and give that a larger amount, or do you just figure, well, every community has some need, so let's spread it out? So that's that's the challenge, I think, for sure. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 6 8:54

And I have always wondered uh having some food, access to food for those students who need it at school, they're getting it from Monday to Friday.

Speaker 4 9:03

Right.

Speaker 6 9:03

But what happens to those students on the weekend?

Speaker 4 9:06

Right. That is a big time. You can often tell certain students that I don't think they ate that well. And as we have said time and time again, if you don't have a full stomach, it doesn't matter what you're teaching. You can't learn. You can't learn it starts with this. The basic need that it starts with.

Speaker 6 9:24

How how do you focus?

Speaker 4 9:25

You don't stay well. There's behavioral problems that happen with lack of food, right? So much stems from this. So we we were out looking for charities, right? When there's many groups that do different things. But you came across one that you really were excited about and you wanted to do that.

Speaker 6 9:39

I came across a podcast called uh Backpack Buddies. Right. Uh it it started here on on the North Shore. Um actually it was created by a woman named uh Joanne Griffiths and her daughter, and they started small and they have gotten to the point where they provide uh weekend uh meals for students uh all throughout all of BC. So we're going on a field trip today.

Speaker 4 10:08

Yeah, I think we will. We'll go out there, let's actually meet Joanne and have a little walk around and then sit down with her and find out about Backpack Buddies. So, Roy, we've arrived at Backpack Buddies and we're going to go on a tour.

Speaker 6 10:20

That's right. Uh Joanne Griffiths is going to give us a tour of the facility, show us how uh they put everything together, and then we'll be able to uh meet with her later and talk about how this company started.

Speaker 4 10:33

Yeah, we'll sit right down and get into the nitty-gritty of it all, but I'm amazed with what I see so far, so let's get going. Okay.

Speaker 3 10:39

Okay, so well, this is our office area, and this is where all of the corporate stuff happens. Um we have that where we are in that room there is our donation donor team because we have like 20,000 donors now over the years. We've accumulated um really a solid donor base, which has really helped us move to where we are. It's amazing. That's my office. That's the donor relations management team. There's Emily Ann, she's my daughter and co-founder. That's her office there.

Speaker 4 11:12

How long have you been here?

Speaker 3 11:13

We've been in this space now, five years.

Speaker 4 11:16

Okay.

Speaker 3 11:16

We started off. Um, I mean, I don't know whether you want me to give the history as we're touring.

Speaker 4 11:22

Well, maybe we'll maybe we'll get to some of those questions of those parts when we're sitting down.

Speaker 3 11:27

She's our executive assistant. This is Allison, she's head of our volunteer program volunteers. Yes. These two boys are part of our team that help in the warehouse. This is where all the magic happens, all the bags get packed. Um, we have volunteers in. We don't have any in today, unfortunately, but you can see, but we usually have volunteers in every single day helping us get we got 5,200 bags out of here every week now, at least almost up to 55. Up to 5,500. So this is all of the food supplies that we have. We we try to keep a two-week supply. Um, lessons from COVID and you know, other black swan events like floods and fires, so that we, you know, when things don't get delivered on time. So we try, although we're quite empty right now at the minute, but I guess we're getting some deliveries in next week, probably.

Speaker 6 12:22

Do you distribute throughout the province?

Speaker 3 12:24

We do.

Speaker 6 12:24

Yeah.

Speaker 3 12:25

And Shock back there is in charge of getting the bags out to all the different uh communities. He bags them all up into the boxes, and those go out. We never we didn't used to do that, but now we have to because it's all over the province. It's what 452 schools now? Yeah, all the way up to Stuart, Kootenies, all up and down Vancouver Island. We're in 52 communities now. We have we took about 800 kids off our wait list this fall, which is the first time we've been able to expand in two years. Um, and they were quickly replaced with another 800. We have about 2,000 kids on our wait list. It's shut down at the moment because we just don't want to give kids hope that they can get bags when we really have no capacity to add more kids at the moment. We have usually three to four trucks on the road every day delivering around the lower mainland. Um, there's two boys out this week or today delivering.

Speaker 6 13:29

So then how would students uh who are in the program, how would they uh get their bag? Is it I mean, it it's not delivered to their classroom.

Speaker 3 13:38

It would be it depends on the school. Some are delivered to the classroom, um, some the kids go to pick them up, others, you know, the teachers will put them into their bags so that there must be a way that they haven't, they're not it's not seen, so there's no schema. Yeah, yeah. In some cases, every kid in the school will get a bag, so it's not a big deal. They just line them up on the outside of the classroom and the kids pick them up on the way by. Yeah, if there's only a couple of kids in the school, then they figure out how to do that. We don't have a lot to do with interacting with kids in the schools.

Speaker 6 14:10

Yeah. So I'm just looking at some of the things you have here. You have soup and cereal. Yeah, we can let's just take a quick peek from the what would typically be in a bag because this is meant to be for the weekend.

Speaker 3 14:24

This is meant to be for the weekend. We usually put six to eight, well, seven to eight meals in the bag, and then we put snacks, as you can see, fruit roll-ups.

Speaker 6 14:32

Fruit roll-ups.

Speaker 3 14:33

This is a new uh item for us this year, three farmers. We can do all Canadian. This is local. Okay, nice. This obviously is not, this obviously is not.

Speaker 6 14:42

This cereal cereals, uh, sprag.

Speaker 3 14:45

This is a local company. This is all um plant-based, which is my deal because I'm plant-based.

Speaker 14:51

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 14:52

Made good is made here. Made good, yes. Have a deal with them now. We are buying straight from them rather than through um Seyman or Cisco, who are our main suppliers. These soups by Campbell's are packed, especially for us with the snap top. They don't make these small ones. We can't get them. You can't buy these in the stores. So they're a special skew for us. Um, this is Ocean Brands.

Speaker 6 15:18

Ocean brand tuna.

Speaker 3 15:18

Tuna. We have usually it has crackers with it, this one doesn't. And then we also get hemlots and crackers. Oatmeal, this is local. We're trying to make it as healthy as possible. When we started out, it wasn't great because it's so specific what we need to put into the bags. We need it child-friendly, easily consumable, and they need to be able to prepare it on their own. We literally started with 20 backpacks out of the back of my car.

Speaker 1 15:44

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 15:44

We shopped at Safeway with kids from Collingwood School.

Speaker 1 15:47

Yeah.

Speaker 3 15:47

And here we are with we have almost, I think we have now 19 full-time employees that um help us get this put together every week.

Speaker 15:57

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 16:00

We sometimes sort of sit back and go, wow, how did we get here?

Speaker 16:04

Yeah.

Speaker 3 16:04

And the need just keeps growing. I mean, we're we're basically grown out of this warehouse. I mean, we Mamley Ann and I both, like I grew up on the North Shore. She was born on the North Shore. And this is a great place for us because we live here.

Speaker 1 16:17

Yeah.

Speaker 3 16:18

But we're probably gonna have to move out closer into the valley eventually.

Speaker 1 16:23

Yeah.

Speaker 3 16:24

Because this is just, yeah, we're outgrowing this really quickly.

Speaker 6 16:27

Well, this facility is full, really.

Speaker 3 16:29

I mean, it is full, yeah.

Speaker 6 16:31

And you have to be able to move around so you can't really put anything more in here.

Speaker 4 16:36

So it shows you, I mean, you obviously just had that idea and you just started with your car, put it in the car, and you can't.

Speaker 3 16:41

Well, I I can explain to you how the idea got started when we when we sit down.

Speaker 4 16:45

Yeah, it's remarkable for you to have started with that first step and now look at this and see this.

Speaker 3 16:53

Yeah, isn't it crazy?

Speaker 1 16:55

It is, yeah.

Speaker 3 16:56

It's like, how did this happen? Yeah, but it did, and it just speaks to the need of the kids. I mean, there's 254,000 kids hungry in BC. Yeah, yeah, in the new uh family um survey that they do.

Speaker 17:09

Wow.

Speaker 3 17:11

Last year there's 162, right? So it's gone up by 30 odd percent. Wow. So yeah, it's uh it's a labor of love for sure. It started out, now it's kind of more of a we don't get out on the road very much anymore, which is kind of a shame because that was the part that I really loved.

Speaker 6 17:29

That would be the satisfying part, right? It would be you see the faces, you see the gratitude, uh, and you see that you're you're making a difference. Now you just have to kind of know. You know you are, you and you know you are, but it is it's that it's that anecdotal evidence.

Speaker 3 17:44

So boys are often come back with stories, and we get lots of cards and lots of families, you know, saying thank you. And it's yeah, it's amazing that uh we're here.

Speaker 4 17:57

Yeah. Okay. Well, shall we go and yes, yeah, let's go set up and then we'll talk a little more.

Speaker 6 18:01

Go to the office. Okay, here we are. Uh today we're speaking with Joanne Griffiths, co-founder uh and director of Backpack Buddies. Is that correct?

Speaker 3 18:10

Director of Strategic Partnerships and co-founder with my daughter.

Speaker 6 18:14

All right, fantastic. So we we like to start off with making our guests feel comfortable by doing an ABC 123.

Speaker 2 18:23

Okay.

Speaker 6 18:24

Okay. First thing that pops in your head. First thing that pops into your head, I'm gonna give you a choice, and here we go. Are you ready?

Speaker 2 18:30

No.

Speaker 6 18:31

There's no right or wrong. There's no right or wrong. No.

Speaker 2 18:34

I'm not being greeted on this outway.

Speaker 6 18:36

Okay, here we go. A. Passenger or driver?

Speaker 2 18:41

Oh, driver.

Speaker 6 18:42

Oh. I know I'm a horrible passenger. Without a doubt.

Speaker 2 18:47

Without a doubt. I don't drink, so I'm always the driver.

Speaker 6 18:50

Okay. Zombies or vampires. Halloween's coming. Halloween's coming, you know.

Speaker 3 18:59

Zombie.

Speaker 6 19:00

Okay. All right. Uh C, test the waters or dive into the deep.

Speaker 2 19:07

Dive in to the deep.

Speaker 6 19:08

Dive in. Nice. Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:11

Straight in head first.

Speaker 4 19:13

Ask questions next. Okay, one, two, three. What was your favorite book as a child? If you have one.

Speaker 3 19:20

Oh, all the Enid Blyton series. I can't remember the names, but Enid Blyth.

Speaker 4 19:25

My mom got me those because she was a British. And I just too. I was born there in England. Yeah. My mom's from Cambridge. And I I remember going to the library with her and she couldn't find them. I was like in grade three or four, and then she found copies. I just s got into those so much.

Speaker 3 19:39

I loved Enid Blyton.

Speaker 4 19:40

Yeah.

Speaker 3 19:40

The Flowers in the Attic. That was another one that was really good.

Speaker 4 19:43

Okay. Number two. If you had only one piece of music that you could listen to, you don't have to play it over and over again. But let's say you're on a deserted island and you have to play only one piece. Is there one piece you would choose?

Speaker 3 19:57

Just breathe by Oasis.

Speaker 4 19:59

Okay. Okay. There you go. Good why why that one?

Speaker 3 20:02

Just my favorite Oh the words, everything. My favorite song, the the the the singing voice, just the whole it's it's I mean, because O Oasis is known for kind of like rowdy music. This is not rowdy. It's super calming, and whenever I need something to calm me down, I play it.

Speaker 4 20:20

Okay. Nice. And then number three. When you grew up as a child, did you have a favorite teacher? And if you did, can you think of who he or she was?

Speaker 3 20:29

Miss Blinkhorn.

Speaker 4 20:30

Okay. Great Blinkhorn. What a great name.

Speaker 3 20:32

Three. Yeah. In Grade three or four at Stride Avenue. Not Stride Avenue. Yeah, Stride Avenue.

Speaker 4 20:39

Okay.

Speaker 3 20:39

In Barnaby.

Speaker 4 20:40

Okay. And what made her your favorite?

Speaker 3 20:44

That's a really good question. She was very like it was because I came from England and I was when I was six.

Speaker 20:51

Yeah.

Speaker 3 20:51

So I had a really hard time fitting in to school then. I had an English accent. I got bullied mercilessly. I still remember all these years later. Yeah. People calling me names for talking weird, so I was trying not to talk with an English accent. And we didn't have a lot of money, so we were eating hot dogs and pig's feet and things like that that we went to the butchers to get. That used to be not food really, but now it's delicacy.

Speaker 5 21:15

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 21:16

And well, not hot dogs, but pigs' feet. I remember.

Speaker 5 21:18

Yeah.

Speaker 3 21:19

It made me into a vegetarian. I haven't eaten meat for 35 years. But she was very kind. She would take me to her house sometimes and you know, try and make me feel comfortable. And yeah, she was just all around.

Speaker 4 21:31

Aaron Powell I had the opposite experience of you because when I was five, my mom had to go back to Cambridge for about six months because her mom was dying. Yeah. And we went there and I went to school in England when I was five in Cambridge, and people made fun of my actor and that kind of thing, right?

Speaker 3 21:44

Trevor Burrus It's amazing how fast you lose it, right?

Speaker 4 21:47

Are you American? No, I'm not American. I remember being annoyed by that, right? But eventually I I did get along with it. It took a while at first. I was kind of bullied and ostracized, but then we made some good friends and it was good in the end. But it was a challenge at first. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 6 22:02

Okay. All right. So, Joanne, could you tell us what Backpack Buddies is and how does the program work?

Speaker 3 22:11

So Backpack Buddies is a program that is made available to vulnerable kids to plug the weekend hunger gap. The school programs run during the week from Monday to Friday, and kids usually get, although I can be corrected on this now because it's I think it's changed quite a bit in the last couple of years, kids get lunch and sometimes breakfast from Breakfast Club. And they go home on Friday afternoons and they don't have food till they come back on Monday morning for those programs. So when we discovered that there was that gap, we decided that we were gonna do something about it.

Speaker 4 22:45

And what inspired that to get that going? Yeah.

Speaker 3 22:48

So I have four kids, and when my last child left to go to university, I was one of these empty nesters, sat on my couch for a year going, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life? And I've always been motivated by welfare of children. I helped build Canuck Place. I was one of the founding members of that all those years ago, and now as we know, it was the well, not everybody knows, but it was the very first freestanding hospice for children in North America. And now there's hundreds of them following the model of Canuck Place. So I'd always wanted to do something with children. I couldn't figure out what to do until I went to see a friend of mine who worked at Grandview School on the downtown east side. She was an outreach worker, First Nations, and I have a great interest in medicinal plants, and there's a lot of native medicinal plants that she was growing in the school yard. So I went down there and we went through a tour and she was showing me all the different things about the medicinal plants. And we went back into her office and we sat down and I said, you know, I if you could have something for kids in your school, what's missing? What do you need? And she said, We need food for weekends. And that was kind of like my opera opera, Oprah win-free aha moment. Okay.

Speaker 24:08

Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3 24:09

And that's exactly what I said.

Speaker 24:11

Yeah.

Speaker 3 24:11

Aha. I think we need to do something about this. So Emily Ann, my daughter, who is my co-founder, was working at a law firm with aspirations of possibly going to law school. And I called her up as soon as I left Aaron at Grandview and I said, We are going to start feeding kids on weekends. And she goes, Mom, there's this diving in head first, right?

Speaker 4 24:30

There you go. Mom. You're in the deep end now.

Speaker 3 24:33

You're nuts. Like, what are you talking about? Anyway, I said, Well, here's the idea. Let's talk about it. So it took a couple months to kind of get her warmed up and on board. And we didn't have any funding. We didn't know how we were going to start. So we decided to start at Collingwood, which is where all my kids went to school. So we went up there and talked to one of the kids in the service club and said, Can you please help us with this project? We want to raise money. We want to feed kids on the downtown east side with food for weekends. And it took them a while to get it passed through different. I mean, as you know, you're teachers, it's you can't just say, Okay, I'm gonna do this, it's gotta go through the motions.

Speaker 25:10

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 25:11

So it took a while for that, and then they decided, yes, that's this is a go. So they had a little fundraiser. It was called uh Dress Down Toonie Tuesday, Dress Down Fridays or something, where they could wear regular clothes and bring a toonie and donate it. We got enough money to buy enough food for 20 bags. So we took the kids, we went down to Safeway, we bought the food, we packed it in the back of my car. We took the kids down to Grandview, handed it out, and that's how it started. As grassroots as that.

Speaker 4 25:48

Yeah, yeah. You were in the deep end when you were in the deep end. But you kept your head above water.

Speaker 3 25:53

Not all the time, but it it you know, it's one of those things where you sort of see it, you see the need, you see the kids when you give them the bags of food. You can't unsee that. Yeah, you have to keep going. No, yeah, and that's what we did.

Speaker 4 26:08

How did it grow from there?

Speaker 3 26:09

That's a really good question. It liter well, I had a friend that I went to high school with, who I've known for I'm not saying how long, and she uh I she worked for Remax. And one night we went out for wine, and I was telling her what we were doing and how you know we we were trying to figure out where to go next. And she said, Well, I have my managing broker at REMAX, and I'm gonna talk to them to see what we can do to help you. So we went down to meet Deb, and she was honestly, she probably was her and Denise, my friend, were instrumental in getting us. It still makes me emotional. They were instrumental in getting us to where we are. We she's Deb said to me, if you needed three things, what would it be? What would you need to get going? And I said, We needed a van to deliver bags because we couldn't do it out in my car anymore. We needed an office space to work from, and we needed storage. And at that time I had this great idea of building a shipping container village. And so I said, We need shipping containers, we want to work out of shipping containers. So she went away, and about a week later she called us and she said, Well, I'm giving you all three things. She bought us a van, she gave us space in their office, and she purchased two shipping containers for us. Wow. Which we put down on the First Nations land under the Lionscape Bridge. Um, hereditary chief um Bobby, not Bobby, can't remember his name now. Oh my gosh, that's really bad. Anyway, he let us uh squat on his land for free.

Speaker 4 27:46

Wow.

Speaker 3 27:46

With the shipping containers.

Speaker 4 27:47

Wow. So that's where we started species came together. Yeah.

Speaker 3 27:50

It wasn't like how and that was kind of the philosophy that Emily Ann and I had. You know, we would go forward, and if the path was open and the it was positive, we would keep moving forward. If it was a no, then we would shift directions. But we didn't get a lot of no's. It was crazy. And people could see the need in in what we were doing. Right. And the value in what we were doing to help kids learn. Yeah. Because you can't learn how to do that. Everything else is irrelevant. Yes, it really is, right? Yes. If you're starving hungry, and a lot of behavioral issues and the learning things all come from being hungry.

Speaker 6 28:28

Of course. Yep. Of course. So and you're building community. Yeah.

Speaker 3 28:32

Building community. Building community. Yeah.

Speaker 6 28:34

Yeah. So how many students do you support with backpack buddies right now?

Speaker 3 28:40

We support about 6,500 kids a week now. Which is crazy from up from the 20.

Speaker 4 28:48

And how do you identify the the schools where the need is? How do you connect with those schools? What's the process?

Speaker 3 28:53

Well, interestingly enough, when we first started out, I literally sat on the phone calling schools, going, We have this program, are you interested? And I just I want to add about how we expanded in the beginning. Because we had a model called Kids Helping Kids, and what we did was we went to schools like Collingwood, Brockton, St. George's, Crofton, all those schools. We presented our program, we got our foot in the door, we presented our program to them, and they helped us expand. They would do the same thing. They would fundraise with their service clubs. We would, they would give us the money, we would go buy the food, we would drop off the food, they would pack the bags, we would go pick up the bags and then deliver them in our brand new backpack buddies mobile. Which was that's how we got started. And I would sit on the phone going, We have this program, and people would first say, What are you talking about? And I would say, Well, go and call Grandview, because Aaron was a big supporter of ours at the beginning, go and call Grandview school, they will tell you what we do. And we got a lot of doors slammed in our faces at first, and then it just people just started going, This is great. We need this program in our school. So we ended up with 19, we called them buddy schools, and they we part them partnered them up with schools in need, and that's if the school needed 50 bags, then that partnered school would do 50 bags. Okay, and that's our first fundraiser was a martini night down at the Yale Town pub. And we raised 1800 bucks on got three martinis for 10 bucks, and it was like a contest. My son was one of the bartenders and um 50-50 draw, which I still have the box and the tickets in my office. And that was our very first fundraiser, and we we had 1800 bucks that first year, and that's what we started on.

Speaker 6 30:44

Wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 3 30:46

Paid for gas in that first year. We didn't buy uh food at all for the first couple of years because we had this buddy school system. And then, of course, we all know what happened in 2019 and 2020 when COVID hit, and we had to shut that down. Um, we had moved from our shipping containers to a warehouse on Esplanade, which was 1200 square feet, and literally when COVID hit, we were out packing bags on the street because we couldn't be couldn't be in together. Yeah, it was so funny. Volunteers kept coming. A lot of charities that had laid off their workers um came to help us, which was amazing. It is amazing. We were all in masks on the street, six feet apart, packing bags, and I did not manage to get COVID catch COVID then. And so we the government funding that came out in those years was what helped us expand into here.

Speaker 31:40

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 31:41

And since we've moved here in the last five years, our budget's grown from about 1.2 million dollars to this year, it's gonna be upwards of six million dollars.

Speaker 6 31:53

Wow. Wow. Yeah, amazing, amazing.

Speaker 3 31:58

In just over a decade.

Speaker 4 32:01

That's remarkable. Like that is, you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 32:04

We have an amazing team now. Yeah, we have an amazing grant writer. She was our first employee. Well, she wasn't employed, she was our first contract worker that we paid. And Lorraine, who is our logistics manager, who is she gets every bag with the help of Allison now. Allison's just new to us, but Lorraine was doing it before every bag into every kid's hand every week. She's incredible. So she was our first paid employee, she was part-time, and I looked at her when we hired her and I said, I'm gonna hire you full-time. I know it one of these days we're gonna have a full-time job for you. And sure enough, she was our first employee. Wow. We Emily Ann and I didn't get paid for years. We just did it because, like you like you said, you see it, you can't unsee it, and you just keep going.

Speaker 4 32:47

But I mean, I I mean I've only we've known you an hour, and I can see your your energy and enthusiasm. It's probably a big reason too. Yeah, you've got to give yourself a majority.

Speaker 3 32:58

When my friends see me coming down the street, they cross this to the other side of the road because they know I'm gonna ask them for money.

Speaker 6 33:03

But but it takes that, and you have that. Wow. Yeah, that that enthusiasm and the And don't take no for an answers.

Speaker 3 33:09

Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 6 33:12

So we we had a tour through the facility, and we know that the the bags that the the students receive, uh they've received them on on Fridays or their To take home. To take home for the weekend. And let's could we go over uh what kind of food is put in those bags for the students so that our our listeners get an idea of exactly what the contents of that bag would be?

Speaker 3 33:37

We try, as you saw, to put healthy, single-serving, child-friendly, non-perishable food into the bags. And we put between seven and eight meals in the bag to last them from Friday to Monday morning. Um we have a whole variety of really well, what we think is nutritious food now. We didn't before, but Lorraine has worked very hard, very hard on trying to stay within our budget of the $25 a backpack with we've got plant-based chilies and um which is comes from Sprague, which is a local company. We've got tuna and crackers, we've got hummus and crackers, we put um I mean, we do put things in like craft macaroni and cheese and noodles. We do have to be cognizant of what the kids like. We can't put food in there that they're not gonna eat because then it kind of defeats the purpose. And we have done that before. Yeah, like baked beans, we've seen them kicked around the field as soccer balls, so we know that baked beans are not um a big you know thing for kids. We try to, well, we don't try, we we do vegetarian bags, we will do halal bags. Um, we try and we're starting off with um a bit of a different program in Richmond where we are putting more culturally appropriate things in the bag because it's different culturally in Richmond than say Surrey or downtown East Side. So we're trying that this year. We've started that. So yeah.

Speaker 4 35:08

I mean that's what impressed me the most when we toured was how balanced the meals are, right? And you obviously have to balance the fact that you've got to have it so it doesn't perish and those kind of things, but you've you've reached that. It's not just junk food, which so often you see is often it's the easiest thing to turn to. Exactly. I think it they that's better meals than some of them bring themselves at lunchtime, right?

Speaker 6 35:29

Than I've seen in some of the classrooms, yes.

Speaker 3 35:32

I know. I've seen some of those meals they've served in at lunch, and it's not great. Pizza hot dogs and stuff. But it's also um we put fruit, fresh fruit now. We we work with Ralph's Farms and Odd Bunch.

Speaker 4 35:46

Oh, great, good.

Speaker 3 35:47

We work with them, and they're now putting together bags for us, little brown bags with baby carrots sometimes, peapods, mini cucumbers, tomate we got a bunch of tomatoes. So we're trying to put more fresh veg in there that's kind of stable because you have obviously you it squishes because all the bags are squished together, and it has to be non-perishable. It'll last like blueberries. We got a whole donation of blueberries in the summer, but they don't know.

Speaker 4 36:14

I don't know.

Speaker 3 36:14

No, it'll last like a day.

Speaker 4 36:15

I mean you're clear clearly having an impact. Is there any story you can share that you know that shows the impact you're having? And that's the thing. There's one story from years.

Speaker 3 36:24

Well, there's one story, sorry for interrupting. There's one story years ago that Emily Ann and I always used to show what we actually do. We were down at Admiral Seymour, which was I think the second or third school we added, and that was back when Emily Ann and I did all the deliveries of the bags. And we got into the car and we just both started bawling our heads off. This one child had come up to us and said, you know, I'm so happy for Backpack Buddies on Friday. She said, I'm so excited when I see you coming. Because she said, if I didn't have your food, all I would have over in the weekend is water. And that's still like that's sort of impressed on our hearts that this is, and those are the sorts of things when you think, Oh my god, how I can't do this anymore. You know, are we making a difference? Is it helping? And you get stories like that, and it's like, yeah, we're really helping. Yeah, and we're making a difference in these kids' lives. And that's one story that we often will talk about because we just and we were both driving away going, oh but we we we don't do the corporate or we are more corporate now, as you can see from our office. We don't get out on the road very much anymore. We have a team that does that for us. But I do miss that because that's part of you know why we did it. Yeah, why we started this was to make a difference in kids' lives.

Speaker 6 37:43

So, what do you see as your biggest challenge right now? Challenge to the organization in going to the next step or going forward from what you're doing right now?

Speaker 3 37:58

The only challenge that we have is funding. That's what we need to get to the next step, to add more kids. We have a waiting list of about 2,000 kids. Um we have taken off about 600 this year due to two fairly large um uh uh grants that we secured this year that and their multi-year funding, and that's the thing that we have to have to be more cognizant of is we never want to take a child off the program if they're added. So we have to be super careful with expanding. If we get the funding, we have to make sure that it's multi-year so that we can keep going with that amount of bags.

Speaker 38:45

Right.

Speaker 3 38:46

Because God forbid if we had to pull back, right? That would really suck. Which is why it took two years for us to expand as much as we have. And um so that's that's uh because we only focus, we have one program. That's it. We don't we're not diluted in any way. We feed kids on weekends. Right. That's our main that's it. That's all we do. So in order to expand that, um it's just a matter of getting more funding. We're trying to talk the government into helping us out with their feeding futures program and their school program, the money that they've just Carney has just designated for the next as permanent funding now, which was only not permanent. Right, right, yeah. But we haven't been able to break into that yet, because technically we're not a school program. We deliver our program through schools, but we're not a school program. So if we can break we do get some of the funding, some of the school districts, I think three of them give us funding from that. Okay, okay, but it's not designated for weekend programs.

Speaker 4 39:48

I would imagine you're seeing the need growing.

Speaker 3 39:51

You know, like I said to you before, there was 162,000 kids last year. This year it's 254,000 vulnerable children that we could feed. And we were only scratching the surface. We're not even doing 7,000 yet.

Speaker 4 40:02

And why do you think it's growing?

Speaker 3 40:03

Like, just see the economy, yeah, the Trump tariffs. Um, you know, a lot of these families are working two and three jobs. Yeah, yeah. And they're just not making ends meet. Everything, I mean, you know what it's like in the grocery store. Yeah. I mean, you go and you buy a small bag of groceries at 60 bucks. Yeah. Like, how do you feed a family when that's so like the coffee that I buy used to be for a tin of the coffee was 12 bucks. Yeah. It's 38 now.

Speaker 4 40:30

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 40:32

It's ridiculous.

Speaker 4 40:34

CBC was just doing this program about food deserts and stuff that in small communities. They're you know, they often don't even have a supermarket anymore. So people have to go to the gas station to get just processed food, and it's becoming a bigger and bigger issue as well.

Speaker 3 40:47

We would love to expand more into northern communities. Um we are in a few, but not nearly as many as we would like to be in there again. It's funding and logistics. A lot of these northern communities don't have ways in. When the floods and the fires were on, we were helping out those communities, and we were flying food in and helicoptering food in and sending it in by boats to try and get it to families that were literally cut off.

Speaker 6 41:14

Is there any other organization that you dovetail with that that is doing the same kind of thing that you can work in cooperation with There is another program, we're not working with them at the moment.

Speaker 3 41:27

We have tried in the past, we're trying again. So we'll see how I'm I'm not gonna say who it is, but we're gonna see. But there is only one other program, and it's not really like ours. Ours, we take the food to the children, and there's one bag per child. Their um program is more family-oriented.

Speaker 41:44

Okay.

Speaker 3 41:45

And we're not family size oriented, we're for just a single bag for a single child.

Speaker 4 41:52

Yeah. But it's too bad you couldn't get stable funding from the government. Yeah. You know what? It's not through lack of trying. Yeah, no, I'm sure you're you've you've probably explored every avenue possible. But yeah. Yeah. You know. It was very successful, but of course, you know, the economy turns and suddenly these things get pulled back at a time when we need them more than ever.

Speaker 3 42:15

And they put apples and granola bars in these classrooms.

Speaker 4 42:18

Right.

Speaker 3 42:18

Yeah. Sorry? Like that's not working.

Speaker 4 42:22

We've talked about that, right?

Speaker 6 42:23

Yes, we we we have because I mean I know the our the BC um Ministry of Education sees that there is a need in the schools. Um of the programs they have right now, they have uh I think all that I've seen in North Vancouver, all schools have refrigerators in them. And they have apples and they have carrots and they have celery sticks, boiled eggs. Uh but it's it's not it's just a light snack. It's not something that's you know very has a good nurturing, so a nutrient-dense meal.

Speaker 4 43:05

Yeah, and I feel it's kind of spread out, sorry, Roy, but I think it's spread out thin among everybody rather than focusing on those that really need it.

Speaker 3 43:12

Funny, I heard about those boiled eggs last week. A group donated a bunch of boiled eggs, and I'm thinking, what is the school gonna do with a bunch of boiled eggs?

Speaker 6 43:24

We've seen them. Yes, we have some they they do get eaten. Thanks, agripe. But not uh not enough. By by Friday, uh, because they need to get everything out of the refrigerator, they're trying to give, you know, the students who are going down the halls, hey, do you want to bake carrots? Do you want and and uh yeah, it's it it's it's different.

Speaker 3 43:47

Is that train gonna I it's good background sound?

Speaker 4 43:51

There you go. Those trains are so loud.

Speaker 3 43:54

Yeah, I can imagine and they are miles and miles long.

Speaker 4 43:57

Yeah.

Speaker 3 43:58

It'll probably go for twenty minutes.

Speaker 4 44:00

I mean I live in 11th and I hear don't match what you hear.

Speaker 44:04

Six feet off our I like it.

Speaker 6 44:07

Good background. So you strike me as someone who who, you know, this is what I'm doing right now, but I have some other ideas too. Do you have anything percolating on the on on the back of the stove that you that you really like, you know, um I because when I was looking at um my notes and looking at things and go, I was I was thinking, well, what do students do at spring break? Right? What and and so do you have something in the back of your mind? You strike me that you might.

Speaker 3 44:39

We have had the school breaks in mind for years, but it's very difficult to do because there's no school, and that's how we get to the kids is through schools. This year we did a market style program in Surrey, fully funded by Surrey, thankfully. And we did family uh it's it's hard to describe what we we got family size bags of food, much like I was just saying we didn't do, but we did this just for this summer program to to pilot it to see if it worked. And we partnered with there was a group out in Surrey, and uh, you know what, the name escapes me. We work with so many different agencies, and they donated produce and perishable, and we loaded up our big truck and we took it out there, and it was we went three days a week and it was set up like a market style. So we lined up all of the produce on the tables, and then there was a bag of food at the end which contained like family-sized spaghetti, pasta, family size, all sorts of different stuff that we had in the bag that we had purchased, and that was kind of an experiment that we did to try and get food to families during the summer. It was only in Surrey, it was successful to a point. The biggest problem, which is why our program is so successful, is families getting to us. Okay, we get to the kids by going through the schools and dropping the bags off at the schools, and the kids get them there. So families had sometimes tough times, especially on the rainy days. Remember at the beginning of the summer how much it rained? So families trying to get to the schools to pick the bags up was an issue.

Speaker 46:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3 46:33

That's kind of all we have going at the moment. We did it in spring break as well. It was more successful in spring break, and I think because it was only two weeks long. And we had all the food out at the beginning of the school year, at the beginning of the break. This year, during the summer, we did this program for about six weeks, and we did three different schools, three different days, like we did Monday, no, we did Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, three different schools on those three different days. And it, like I say, it wasn't as successful as we had hoped. It was more successful in the beginning, not on the rainy days, but then at the end, it just tapered off.

Speaker 1 47:09

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 47:10

So we haven't, I mean, we're always thinking about how to try and get to the kids in the summer and spring break. Christmas we don't do because there's a lot of programs through Christmas that give out food. Yeah. And while Christmas, families ended up with a turkey, a ham, and a salmon. And what do you do with a turkey and a ham and a salmon in a week? Right? So we didn't do anything that week, or for those two weeks. And we let other agencies, which there are plenty of at Christmas time, and we save our resources for and I and you kind of referred to that earlier.

Speaker 4 47:48

I think you want to be successful where you've been successful, right? And if you spread yourself out to places where you're not, then it's just gonna take away from those areas. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so we really encourage our listeners to hopefully support backpack buddies. How would you uh encourage people to support? What should they do? How can they help out? How can they find out about you and where can they go?

Speaker 3 48:07

We have an amazing website, backpackbuddies.ca, not dot com or dot org.ca dot ca.

Speaker 4 48:14

We'll put a link on our website. Oh, thank you.

Speaker 3 48:17

And there is everything you need to know about backpack buddies on that incredible website. We spent two years building that and it went live last summer, and it's amazing. There is ways to donate on the website. You can donate for one bag of food, $25 for a weekend, you can donate for two, you can donate for a month, you can support a child for a whole year, which is I think $940. Um that's how you can support volunteering. You can we have been one of those agencies that has had the most amazing success with volunteers. Okay. And we have about 500. Wow. And when our volunteer, we send out once a quarter volunteer signups, and we're full within an hour of having heartwarming.

Speaker 6 49:07

Yes, it is. It is, it is.

Speaker 3 49:09

We also have a pack and give back program, which I just want to give a quick plug for for corporations or anybody that really wants to go and raise money for us. And what it is is you donate to the program, usually a minimum of $5,000, and then you can book a time on a Tuesday or a Thursday and come and pack bags for us. Okay. And you usually bring a team, like if you have, you know, an office team or you have a team of neighbors or whatever to come down and pack the bags. That's a big fundraiser for us. And it's called Pack and Give Back lots of information on the website about that as well.

Speaker 6 49:41

Well, I want to thank you, Joanne, for for this opportunity to get to know you and get to know both backpack buddies. I uh you're such a passionate person and uh it's contagious. It is, and you know I knew of of your organization, but you gave us a a depth of understanding that that we didn't have, and uh, you know, we're gonna definitely, you know, encourage, continue to encourage our listeners to to reach out to backpack buddies in in whatever way feels comfortable for them. Thank you. This isn't just fabulous.

Speaker 2 50:16

Thank you. That was amazing.

Speaker 4 50:19

Thank you, thank you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 50:20

Thank you.

Speaker 4 50:28

Well, we're back in the box, and I'm just glowing from that great, great uh walkthrough at backpack buddies and and a chance to meet Joanne.

Speaker 6 50:38

Yes. Uh it it gave me such a a positive feeling. You know, these things are happening in our community for our students, uh for the students of our listeners here in North Vancouver. And it's just fantastic what uh an an inspiration, an idea that comes to your to your head, so I want to feed children, and say, let's do it.

Speaker 4 51:00

And Joanne talked about jumping in the deep end rather than just dipping her toe in, and it's wonderful that she's that kind of personality, because look at what look what has happened because of her her passion, right?

Speaker 6 51:11

So if our listeners want to continue to support backpack buddies, uh there are some ways that they can get involved.

Speaker 4 51:17

Okay. Well, they can donate. For $25, it covers a weekend. But if you obviously want to provide more money, it will cover more weekends for a child. So that's the simplest way and the the most immediate way to help out. What else?

Speaker 6 51:31

That's right. Uh you can volunteer. Uh those bags have to be packed. You know, they were six thousand bags?

Speaker 4 51:38

I think the volume is amazing.

Speaker 6 51:40

Uh with six thousand bags, and I think she said six meals in a bag.

Speaker 4 51:44

I think so.

Speaker 6 51:45

And so packing those bags, uh delivering the bags to the students, uh, there's always a need for that kind of support.

Speaker 4 51:54

Yeah, and listeners, spread the word. Share this episode or talk about backpack buddies with friends and colleagues. Let them know about this amazing organization.

Speaker 6 52:03

Yes. Visit backpackbuddies.ca to learn more about this organization. They have an amazing website.

Speaker 4 52:09

Yeah, and we'll make a link on our own website on stuntbrothers.ca and our Facebook group as well for After the Bell. We'll make a link to help you out.

Speaker 6 52:17

And I want to give a huge thanks to our guest, Joanne Griffiths from Backpack Buddies. What she shared with us was truly inspirational.

Speaker 4 52:25

She's so inspiring, and to me, she really is a local hero. Yes. Just coming through Thanksgiving. It's wonderful to be thankful that we have someone like Joanne in our community doing this for the kids of British Columbia. Yes. This podcast is organic, taking shape with each episode, building resiliency for teachers everywhere.

Speaker 6 52:43

That sounds great.

Speaker 4 52:44

And our website is stuntbrothers.ca.

Speaker 6 52:46

That's stuntbrothers.ca.

Speaker 4 52:49

We will chat again.

Speaker 6 52:51

After the bell.