The next assignment for students in the Abbotsford and Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school districts is to eat a cookie.
The Rapid Relief Team, the global charitable arm of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, recently announced an expansion of its SmaRRT
Cookie Bar program to North America as part of its mission to ensure that no child has to learn on an empty stomach.
Students in both districts have begun receiving their first shipments and by June 2025, RRT will have distributed 60,000 bars across North America through schools and charitable partners.
The cookie program originally launched in Australia in August 2020 in response to a national food bank report that revealed 22 percent of Australian children had experienced food insecurity in the past year. The program has since expanded to New Zealand, the United Kingdom and now North America.
“Thank you to the RRT for their generous donation,” stated Jeannine Harnett, a recipient from Maple Ridge. “We were surprised at how quickly the bars arrived and were impressed by not only the nutritional density of them, but also by the amazing taste. With 33 per cent of our student population accessing free snacks at school, these make a great difference to our programs.”
According to a press release from RRT, over 14 million children across the U.S. and Canada were affected by food insecurity in 2023, and educators consistently report that hunger is a leading obstacle to their students’ education.
The SmaRRT Cookie Bar is designed specifically for young people experiencing hunger. Produced in Montreal in a facility that is peanut-free, tree nut-free, gluten-free, and kosher, the bars are ideal for safe distribution in schools. Each bar contains just five ingredients – crispy rice, crispy soy, oat flakes, oat flour and dried strawberries.
Ater the ingredients are mixed and pressed into sheets, the bars are cut, cooled,and packaged. Every bar is individually weighed to 25 grams, labelled and boxed for distribution. Once packed, the boxes are stacked on pallets and shipped to schools, ready to be handed out to children who need them most.
Wes Macdonald, a spokesperson for the RRT, emphasized the importance of the program.
“The SmaRRT Cookie Bar was developed to make sure hunger doesn’t stand in the way of a child’s ability to focus and learn,” he said. “We’ve seen firsthand
how a small act of kindness, like a nutritious snack, can help support a child’s health, self-worth, and academic success.”
For more information on the SmaRRT Cookie Bar initiative, visit rrtglobal.org/us/operations-appeals/smarrt-cookie-bar.
