Rotary Club and Soup’s On launch weekend food support program for students

A new Steinbach-based program aims to bolster weekend food support for children already receiving school meals and help families put food on the table.

The Rotary Club of South Eastman partnered with local non-profit Soup’s On to create the Nutrition on Weekends program (NOW). The initiative will provide monthly snack bags filled with 24 nutritious snacks to 25 children to last eight weekend days.

Club president-elect Jo-Anne Dalton said the program addresses a gap in meal services because families are forced to prioritize rent and other necessary costs rather than affording food in between meals for children.

“You might be able to pick up a bag of rice and some pasta and some basic essentials for food, but there isn’t always a lot to offer in between that,” she said.

“That may look like your children get two meals in a day, but they don’t have fresh fruit, they don’t have produce and they don’t have some of those more expensive items.”

The club has budgeted $400 per month to pack the bags. The bags will be distributed on Fridays of every month. Inspiration for the program came from a similar initiative operating in Kenora, Ont.

The pilot project will last until the end of the school year in June. Dalton hopes to include more children and scale up the program if it’s a success and if there’s community support. The program could also include more frequent distribution in the future.

Soup’s On general manager Norma Hildebrand said the new program will assist the existing support offered for families.

“We all want to eat on the weekend as well, and some of these families find it difficult,” she said. “Grocery prices keep rising.”

The non-profit soup kitchen feeds 175 children school lunches five-days-a-week, with 10 new families signing up in 2026. Hildebrand said volunteers make 300 sandwiches every week. Some of the items in the weekend bags include granola bars, fruit cups and fresh bananas.

“It’s always great to work in partnership with the people in the community, however that may look. This is a new one for us and for the Rotary Club, so we are very glad to be working together with them,” she said.

Community members can make monetary donations to Soup’s On with a reference to the NOW program or bring school snack donations to Steinbach Family Resource Centre and Creative Print All.