Crystal MacDonald: Doing Her Part to Feed Hunry Minds
February 18, 2020
Crystal MacDonald is an energetic mom of four boys who loves volunteering in a variety of roles within her childrens' school. She is a volunteer school council member, she assists on many school trips, and she also helps within the classrooms; all because she loves working with the students and doing her part to make things easier for the teachers. This year, Crystal has stepped up to take on the Student Nutrition Program Coordinator position at Minto-Clifford Public School in Harriston. This nutrition program feeds 480 students a three-item nutritious morning meal every day of the week.
Crystal says she got involved with the Children’s Foundation Food & Friends program because she saw the need within the school and the importance of feeding children a healthy meal to help them better focus in class. She also wanted to do her part in helping to fundraise for the program to stretch their budget dollars even further. To date she has raised over $4,200 for the program since September. These additional funds help to offer a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables and give the children a chance to try new things. She even got creative and made spiders out of grapes for a fun Halloween treat for the kids!
Although Crystal coordinates the program, she is so grateful to have the help of 8 other adult volunteers and 3 student volunteers. You can imagine how much fresh food needs to be prepared to serve 480 students each day. Because they are being environmentally friendly, they have switched from using plastic baggies to using reusable containers in each of the ‘Breakfast Bags’ that go out to the classroom. The volunteers report that they don’t mind doing the dishes now that their dishwasher is working again.
Crystal and her dedicated and passionate disposition is a valuable asset to the school community. She said that her volunteer work is important to her because "(she) likes to set a good example for (her) four boys by volunteering and working so hard”. In fact, her oldest son has decided to write his speech about how incredible his mom is! Thank you Crystal for all that you do to bring healthy food to hungry minds.