It’s interesting in that the cost of shipping fresh foods into coastal communities has been an ongoing issue for many; some are trying to deal with it, with varied success.
The federal Government department of Indian Affairs has a ‘food by mail’ program that works to a point. That point being, trying to get all the players on the same page, and run the program to its fullest efficiency.
The province also has a program to supplement the federal program, but it only operates in the winter, plus it is continually under threat of not enough funds or being cut completely.
This summer Nain went without milk or severe limited supply for three weeks. The rest of the time milk and dairy products were available in a spotty manner, parts of weeks etc. Main culprit for this was the deplorable way the province runs the coastal boats, but the airline that carries the food by mail was also at fault. After some lobby efforts the air problem seemed to have been corrected. The problems with the marine shipping are still in question, I’m not sure if it has been addressed but will check on it.
Any way, kudos to all involved in getting milk to the children in the schools, especially Andrew Battcock who seems to have been the mover behind it.
5 comments:
hi brian,
do they have a breakfast in schools progeam in nain?
here they have them and a lot of service organizations donate just so that milk can be part of that program.i've heard the story many times over the years how coastal labrador doesn't receive fresh fruit/milk. yet i seen organizations such as the goose bay kin club donate thousands of dollars to charities and here's a worth while one along the coast. write them a letter if no such breakfast program exists in your area. maybe at least once a week it might make a difference.
I remember when I was a kid we used to have this milk that would keep forever.
Then there was powdered milk not much difference than 2% which is what the wife likes.
That is good news for the schools though.
To you both.
Yes there is a breakfast program, teachers and volunteers, we donate our recyclables to it, and they get 100% of all the beer cans; drink more for a healthy breakfast, just kidding.
Not sure about the milk situation in the past in the school, I know juices are available.
A 1 liter of fresh milk here is $5.99 in the stores. We drink the Grand Pre uht 2%, last longer and is cheaper, as well as the good old tin milk. There is powdered in the stores, some people still use it.
When I was a kid we had fresh milk delivered every morning, it was poured into a can by the milko who used horse n cart to do his rounds. After that the milk was bottled, still delivered by the milko who converted to the 6 cylinder jobs. Then the big American stores came to town, end of all that personal service.
It is an absolute freaking disgrace that in 2006, the provincial bureaucrats and the businessmen they are networked in with cannot figure out how to provide good reliable transport to points north of Goose. From the days when Inuit post kayaks carried the mails between the stations all the way up to the present, everything, and I mean everything, hangs on the reliability of transport and communications.
Grand Pre and Carnation grow on you, for sure, and I don't know what fresh is costing now but it seems to me that last time I was up it was about 6 or 7 bucks a litre. We're really not improved much since teachers in the old school gave each student a glass of KLIM each morning.
Maybe provincial and municipal politics has failed utterly in areas like this. It's pretty sad when you practically have to go out and buy a shipping company to get a glass of milk.
use to drink a lot of powdered milk when i was a kid. was cheaper then the fresh but here lately it's cheaper to buy fresh then powdered for some reason.i can remember milk that came in bottles.as kids we would put molasses in the bottles and tilt them on an angle to catch mice. : )
darn shame that an item such as milk can't be more available for school kids.
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