Early in the morning, three days a week, you will find the Sodexo staff hard at work in the kitchen at Prince Hall. Their mission? To make 24 hot lunches and snacks for the children and volunteers at Saint George’s YouthNet.
Each April, Sodexo account director Céline Béland and her community-spirited team take the money they have raised from everyone who has paid a toonie to wear jeans on Casual Day and turn it into lunches for the charity of their choice.
This year they chose Saint George’s YouthNet, a volunteer-based lunchtime and after school program for children and teens in the Uniacke Square neighbourhood of Halifax. Many King’s students work and volunteer there, including director Jane Neish (BA ’01), program coordinator Natasha Conde-Jahnel (BAH ’07), former volunteer coordinator Jesse Blackwood (BAH ’04), and current student Michelle Johnstone.
Dean of residence, Nick Hatt, leant his support to this year’s Servathon by donating his ‘lost key’ money to the cause, enabling Céline and her team to provide not only a changing menu of lunches, such as shepherd’s pie, roast chicken wraps, and cheeseburgers, but snacks of muffins, banana bread, apples, cheese, and juice as well.
"Everyone here at Sodexo agreed one hundred percent that YouthNet was the charity to support this year," says Céline. "We are very excited to be working with so many people we know from King’s and to be able to provide the YouthNet children with healthy lunches and snacks."
