Newfoundland and Labrador

Official program

Pay-What-You-Can School Lunch Program, Kids Eat Smart & School Milk Foundation

The government's Pay-What-You-Can School Lunch Program is expanding province-wide, delivered through public schools by the Department of Education. Kids Eat Smart Foundation NL runs volunteer-led breakfast and snack "Clubs" province-wide, and the School Milk Foundation of NL supplies reduced-cost milk to schools.

How it works

The lunch program is still expanding rather than fully universal: in 2025-26, about $38 million added pay-what-you-can lunches to 41 additional schools, reaching an estimated 40,000 students by the end of 2025-26, with a plan to reach all Pre-K to Grade 9 students by the end of 2026-27. Kids Eat Smart provides food at no cost to families, serving more than 40,000 breakfasts every school day through 276+ Clubs.

The lunch rollout draws on provincial dollars and federal Canada School Food Program cost-sharing. Kids Eat Smart is funded by an annual provincial operating grant of about $1.4 million plus fundraising and donations; the School Milk Foundation receives roughly $400,000/year in government funding.

Benefits for kids

Canada-wide research links school food participation to improved attendance, lower dropout rates, and better academic achievement, with disproportionately larger benefits for children in food-insecure households — especially relevant in NL, where teachers describe direct impacts on students' ability to concentrate and learn amid the country's highest recent rate of child hunger.

Local facts

• In 2024, NL was tied with New Brunswick for the highest child food-insecurity rate among the provinces at 39.9% (2 in 5 children). (Source: CBC News)
• By 2025, the rate improved to 33.8% of NL children (about 29,200 children), still above the national average. (Source: Food First NL)