'This country is ready for it': Vancouver teacher runs 90 km in a day for school lunch funding
Brent Mansfield spent his Friday running laps around Lord Roberts Elementary School in Vancouver's West End.
He started at 6 a.m. and ran 200 laps in total, about 90 kilometres. But this wasn't just a personal fitness challenge. It was also a call to action.
"The reason we're running 200 laps is because the government of Canada in 2021 committed $200 million a year to develop a national school food program," the Grade 6-7 teacher told CTV News.
"We're ready for it. My students are ready for it. This country is ready for it."
Mansfield is the co-founder of LunchLab, a program at Lord Roberts and two other schools that pairs students with chefs-in-residence to prepare healthy meals for their classmates each day.
The program charges families a sliding scale based on what they can afford, with subsidies available for those unable to pay and opportunities for families to subsidize other students at their school.
Mansfield said the federal Liberals' promise to fund a national school food program is the kind of investment needed to bring LunchLab and programs like it to every school.
He praised the B.C. government for committing $214 million over three years to school food programs in its last provincial budget, and said it's time for the feds to step up.
"I've been teaching in my classes about how to use creativity to get attention, to advocate for others," Mansfield said, explaining the thinking behind Friday's stunt.
"Whatever it takes. Canada, let's wake up and take care of something that's really important to all of us: Feeding children well."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Liberal MP says she's leaving politics over disrespectful dialogue, threats, misogyny
Liberal MP Pam Damoff says she won't run again in the next federal election, saying she has experienced misogyny, disrespectful dialogue in politics and threats to her life.
Concerns about Plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall Plexiglass barriers.
Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Ont. woman who faked pregnancy to defraud doulas arrested again on similar charges
Victims of a Brantford, Ont., woman who was sentenced to house arrest earlier this year for defrauding and deceiving doulas say they’re not surprised she’s been apprehended again on similar charges.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Poilievre returns to House unrepentant for calling Trudeau 'wacko,' Speaker not resigning
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Construction begins on LGBTQ2S+ national monument in Ottawa
Shovels have hit the ground for constuction on Canada's LGBTQ2S+ national monument in Ottawa.
B.C. man awarded $5,000 in damages in first-of-it-kind intimate image case
In a first-of-its-kind case, a B.C. tribunal has ruled on a dispute involving the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, awarding damages and issuing orders that the photos be destroyed and taken offline.