Parliamentary Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, Senator Romel Springer.
Members of the School Meals Department being prayed for by the congregation.
From its humble beginnings when it first started serving milk and biscuits to primary school students all around the island in 1963, the School Meals Department will soon receive a massive upgrade, as the Government intends to have the department functioning on a more robust level.
This promise came from Parliamentary Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, Senator Romel Springer, as he delivered remarks at a church service to mark the School Meals Department's 57th Anniversary, at the Sanctuary Empowerment Centre, Country Road, St. Michael.
“The Ministry of Education is working assiduously to finish the new state of the art facility at Six Roads in St. Philip. Apart from being able to provide perhaps the entire country with meals from this one facility, it will also ease the pressure on the existing facilities which we know are under a tremendous amount of strain,” Springer revealed.
He also underscored the significance for the administration to have a site capable of feeding a mass number of people in the event of natural or man-made disasters.
“I think it’s important to mention now as we grapple with this worldwide pandemic [COVID-19], how important it is to have a facility that can feed a country, in the event that we have a shutdown like how we are seeing in other parts of the world. In a few months we will have our hurricane season, and that’s when the importance of a facility as the one being done in St. Philip becomes more relevent, because in the event we have a disaster, we want to have a facility in this country that cans feed our people,” he explained.
Though no cost has yet to be given to the full investment in this new facility, the Senator was adamant that Government will indeed continue to subsidise the cost of meals from the School Meals Department, as they see meals being provided for the island’s students as being vital.
“My Government will continue to subsidise the feeding programme to ensure that our students are fed… We have kept the cost of feeding the nation’s children at a minimum, because we understand that a hungry child, cannot learn,” Springer stated.
The School Meals Department currently employees roughly 400 workers at its three locations, and provides 30 000 lunches per day to the nation’s children. (SB)