Friday Night Supper Club, Canada
The Friday Night Supper Club is an early childhood intervention programme designed to address cyclical and generational poverty in the City of Saint John, which has the dubious distinction of having the highest child poverty rate of any city in Canada.
The Waterloo Village and South End neighbourhoods of Saint John have been targeted as priority neighbourhoods for social outreach in view of their high poverty rate and the large number of single parent families residing there (34% overall poverty rate; 48% child poverty rate; 31% single parent families). Family units in these neighbourhoods are often fractured with mothers, fathers and their children living in social housing, sometimes apart, often struggling with poverty, unemployment, alcohol or substance abuse or imprisonment of a spouse. Children are often raised without a father figure or by parents who have not had positive role models during their own developmental years. Food security is a major concern, with children often going hungry on weekends and holidays when school meals are unavailable.
To help address this need, in October 2018 the Anglican Diocese of Fredericton and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint John jointly launched an early childhood intervention programme called “Dads & Tots”, under which single fathers and their preschool children were invited to participate in group play and learning sessions supervised by experienced male volunteers. This programme was subsequently expanded to include families and single mothers, and relaunched in February 2020 as the “Friday Night Supper Club”.
At the Friday Night Supper Club, mothers and fathers from some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Saint John are invited to bring their children to a local elementary school where they cook and serve a meal together under the supervision of experienced male and female volunteers using donated foodstuffs. The volunteers conduct cooking classes and organise learning and play activities in a child-friendly environment. They set up tables with linen table cloths, centrepieces, glassware and cutlery and invite other families from the community to share the meal with them. The parents and their children learn cooking skills, everyone gets a square meal and any leftover food is wrapped up and taken home for the weekend.
The programme aims to address food security, improve numeracy and literacy and encourage healthy interaction between parents and their children. It also teaches them valuable food preparation skills and fosters community spirit. By strengthening the bonds between parents and their children, the programme seeks to break the cycle of social failure and improve the chances of children growing into healthy, mature adults.
Saint John, Canada
You can help support the Friday Night Supper Club by making a donation to the Walking Together Foundation. Walk with us, and with them, to build a better future for these children and their fathers!
