In 1988...
An interchurch group investigating the use of food banks in the city of St. John’s prepared a report entitled Poverty: The One Thing Money Can’t Buy.
Their studies concluded that in many families who regularly used food banks, children were being kept home from school because parents didn’t have the money, or food, to provide them with a healthy lunch. The report gained a lot of attention from the public sector.
A committee was created to fight against childhood hunger in the city. A year later and the School Lunch Association was born. Today, it serves up to 14,000 students in 39 schools all over the province.
over 1 million meals server
to 14,000 students
in 39 schools this year
The program’s success, and the impact it had on the children, was incredible.
As the program expanded, the School Lunch Association began using digital solutions to communicate with students' parents and guardians. Email was the most popular and accessible form of communication for many households. Although it worked for some time, engagements and open rates soon began to drop.
Staying in contact with hundreds of people spread out over a large area is difficult. The Association needed a better way to reach everyone in the program. They began searching for modern solutions to their communication issues.
The School Lunch Association realized the best way to reach out to so many people was through texting. But could texting really solve all their problems?