Alberta has the highest rate of severe food insecurity among the ten provinces in Canada. Nearly 1 in 3 children in Calgary lives in a home that struggles with food insecurity. Their families don’t have consistent access to enough healthy food because they lack the income to meet all their basic needs. Food-insecure kids are much more likely to face poor diet quality, learning struggles, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and chronic health conditions. Due to the alarming rise in grocery prices coupled with high housing costs and record increases in inflation, we aim to raise more funds to help meet the growing demand for support.
We used to give food to hungry kids… now we empower families to feed themselves.
In 2015, 11-year-old Sutton Garner learned that thousands of children her age often go without enough food. She wanted to know why this problem existed and how serious it was in Calgary. She discovered that childhood food insecurity is real and pervasive across our city and province. It affects every aspect of a child’s development and can lead to long-lasting impacts on their health and well-being. But this upsetting discovery didn’t intimidate her. She chose to step up and take action. Her desire to create real change was the catalyst that launched I Can for Kids (iCAN).
iCAN operates a grocery gift card program that has created a major shift in how efficiently and effectively the province can help vulnerable children and families access enough healthy food. And our work is based on quality research. An international academic journal, Public Health Nutrition, published key results from our study with the University of Calgary to share the benefits and advantages of our approach with practitioners around the globe.
For over 40 years, Canada has tried to solve food insecurity by donating food to vulnerable children, families, and households. Yet study after study has shown that this approach is fraught with unintended negative consequences. It dictates what people eat without giving them choice or control over their diet. Most importantly, it doesn’t even begin to address the underlying cause: insufficient financial resources. Our income-based approach empowers families with a more dignified way to meet their basic needs and reduce their overall stress levels.
We stopped providing food. Instead, we chose to take a bold step forward.
We no longer see ourselves as a food charity. Instead, we transformed our response to ensure households in greatest need can maintain their human right to healthy food. Our mission is to empower food-insecure children and families with dignified options to purchase the food that meets their unique needs. We support kids for as long and as often as required throughout the entire year. For 50% of our recipients, a few months of support is all they need to get them through a challenging time, whereas severely food-insecure families require more frequent assistance while they overcome major financial setbacks. Each household receives targeted support based on their unique life circumstances.
The success of our model is built on longstanding partnerships with dozens of frontline social service agencies who have direct relationships with food-insecure families. We established an infrastructure and network that enables us to target tens of thousands of children and families at highest risk in Calgary and rural areas of central Alberta. We support children of ALL ages throughout their developing years.
We also collaborate with other organizations who advocate for long-term strategies that address poverty as the root cause of food insecurity. We are an Enough for All Champion with Vibrant Communities Calgary, and we collaborate to raise public awareness of the preventable impacts of poverty. We also endeavour to join forces with more and more partners who wish to improve the way society responds to food insecurity. In 2023, we mentored the Town of Drumheller as they became the first municipality in Alberta to pilot a grocery gift card program. In 2025, we initiated a partnership with McMan Central to reach rural children living in multiple rural towns across the central region of Alberta.
We continually do our homework. We partnered with the University of Calgary to conduct research on how our new grocery gift card program impacts children and families living with food insecurity. We collect comprehensive feedback and insights from our frontline agency partners through an annual program evaluation. We also interview and survey our recipients to learn more about their experiences, perspectives, and recommendations. And this year we will embark on a new study with the University of Calgary to learn more about the day-to-day experiences of the recipients who access our support.
100% of our recipients and agency partners prefer the grocery gift card model over a traditional food hamper program. Our approach is much easier to deliver, it prevents food waste, and it reduces negative impacts on the environment by eliminating the need for bulk food storage, refrigeration, and transportation.
Grocery gift cards represent a barrier- and stigma-free way of empowering families to purchase the food that meets their unique cultural, religious, and health needs. Parents tell us that our program demonstrates unconditional trust in their ability to make the best choices for their kids. In contrast, food programs often leave them feeling devalued, discouraged, and ashamed. Our gift card recipients always share how the freedom to grocery shop with everyone else at a convenient time in the store of their choice restores their sense of pride, dignity, and belonging.
Our new program is simply more inclusive, flexible, and environmentally responsible.
To learn more about the outcomes of our research, please visit: https://icanforkids.ca/research/
In difficult economic times, every dollar creates positive impact. iCAN invests 100% of donations to empower food-insecure families to purchase the foods they need. We cover operating expenses through our annual budget to ensure donors can directly reach the children who need support the most.
In 2024, iCAN distributed $715,850 in grocery gift cards to empower thousands of families to fuel more than 41,500 children in more than 200 communities across Calgary and the surrounding area. These kids lived in households at higher risk for food insecurity, such as immigrant, refugee, Indigenous, visible minority, and single-parent families. About 30% of the children who receive support through our program struggle with a mental health issue, while 16% live with a physical disability and 25% have a neurological disability.
To learn more about the impact of our program, please visit: https://icanforkids.ca/our-impact/
Grocery gift cards act as a bridge that help our agency partners form stronger relationships with their clients while providing families immediate relief from food insecurity. This collaborative approach offers children and parents access to a wide range of wraparound supports that address other serious life stressors associated with inadequate incomes, such as mental health struggles, unemployment, resettlement, unstable housing, high medical expenses, and domestic violence. Grocery gift cards are an efficient tool to build resilience, trust, and community belonging.
We’re always open to opportunities to collaborate with new partners. Due to the many advantages and benefits of our grocery gift card model, the number of frontline agencies on our waitlist now exceeds the number of partners we currently work with. We aim to meet this growing demand through increased donations.
For a full list of our partners, please visit our website https://icanforkids.ca/partners/:
We’re always open to opportunities to collaborate with new partners. Due to the many advantages and benefits of our grocery gift card model, the number of frontline agencies on our waitlist now exceeds the number of current partners in our network. We aim to meet this growing demand through increased donations.
While our grocery gift card program is far more efficient than traditional food provision models, we require ongoing investment from the community to meet the needs of the growing number of food-insecure kids across our province.
Our 2025 fundraising goal is $2.3 million.
Here’s how you can help:
A financial donation is the most critical step in transforming the future of food-insecure kids. You can make an online donation anytime at www.icanforkids.ca/donate. If you want to make a bigger and more consistent impact, consider a recurring monthly gift that enables us to better predict our current level of funding. You can increase, decrease, or cancel a recurring donation at any time.