Kenner Students Sink Their Teeth Into Apples For School Nutrition Awareness During 'Great Big Crunch'

Roughly 180 Grade 7 and 8 students from Kenner Intermediate School students and staff crunched into apples in sync at the ‘Great Big Crunch’ to highlight the need for sustainably funded school food programs across Canada on Thursday morning.

(From left to right) Easton Howard, 12; Savannah Amos, 12; Mona Abokhashref, 12 and Zoey Tremblay, 12 were one of 180 Kenner students crunching into apples at Kenner’s auditorium. As one trivia question asked at the assembly, Macintosh is Canada’s national apple. Photo by David Tuan Bui.

Food For Kids, a student nutrition program, provides nutritious food for 51 Peterborough City and County schools (elementary and high) including Kenner.

Students can arrive hungry to school for several reasons such as long bus rides, rushed mornings and skipped meals.

“I think it's really important, — especially as kids are growing and teenagers like to eat a lot — to be aware that in this day and age when food is so very expensive,” said Tania Lamond, Kenner principal. “We've got many households with food insecurities that we're very fortunate to have Food For Kids fund our nutrition bins so we have healthy food and snacks for our students every morning.”

Kenner had an assembly welcoming the Food For Kids representatives and Peterborough Public Health to briefly teach nutrition and hold trivia before chomping into Ontario-grown apples. The apple-biting measured 94 decibles which is considered roughly the equivalent to a belt sander.

“You could see that all the kids were engaged and really excited to crunch on our apples,” said Lamond. “But I think the most important message today was to bring awareness to the fact that we do have this amazing food program that provides the food here for our students that depend on it.”

This was the 20th year that Kenner’s nutrition program has been in place.

The apples were provided by Peterborough Wholesalers Ltd. and were washed and distributed by the students.

Kenner is openly accepting donations and sponsorships to help continue their food program.

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