Calgary Staff Get Creative in Donation to Brown Bagging for Calgary Kids

Calgary, AB – In September of 2019, Calgary staff started a year-long partnership with Brown Bagging for Calgary Kids (BB4CK). Every month of the school year, a different business unit makes lunches for five schools, feeding over 200 students in need.

BB4CK works in partnership with Calgary schools to make and deliver free healthy lunches for students who would otherwise go hungry. Every day there are 4,700 lunches made and delivered to Calgary kids at 225 schools, relying on 650 volunteers each week to make this happen. It is estimated that one in six Canadian children do not know where their next meal is coming from.

Qualico Calgary staff after volunteering for BB4CK

“I used to be embarrassed to not have a lunch,” says Jack, a student regularly receiving a BB4CK lunch. “Now I can sit at the lunch table with everyone else.”

In addition to monthly lunch making sessions, this partnership also featured a public holiday campaign. The holiday campaign took place from November 12 to December 31, 2019. Donations made from December 1 to 15 were matched through the donation from Qualico, as well as an anonymous donor, meaning that $2 created two lunches for Calgary kids.  

In total, the donations made through the public holiday campaign amounted to over $613,000, which will provide almost 307,000 lunches. This will feed 4,700 kids a day, for 83 days!

Qualico Calgary staff and Kevin Van, President & CEO, make sandwiches for BB4CK

“The lunches you provided helped me do a better job in school,” says Hannah who recently graduated. “Without this food, I would not have been able to focus on my school work and graduate.”

Along with the financial contributions, Calgary staff also got involved by collecting food, gift cards and cash for BB4CK. Business units then created holiday displays out of their donations in order to win a pizza party for their area. BB4CK came to judge the displays, awarding NuVista Homes and Augusta Fine Homes the winner.

NuVista Homes and Augusta Fine Homes' Winning Holiday Donation Display

The partnership with BB4CK has shown itself to not only be a great philanthropic initiative in terms of impact, but also created team building throughout the individual business units in the Southern Alberta region.