President’s Choice Children’s Charity is a 4-star rated, financially transparent charity with Good demonstrated impact. The charity has an average results reporting grade and its overhead spending is within Ci's reasonable range. It has $12.9m in reserve funds, which can cover 9 months of program costs.

Founded in 2000, President’s Choice Children’s Charity's dual purpose is to remove hunger as a barrier to learning and to educate about food and nutrition. From 1989 to 2000, the charity operated under the name Kids You Can Count On Us, before being incorperated as President's Choice Children's Charity. The charity operates a student nutrition program (SNP), serving schools in all provinces. President's Choice Children’s Charity explains that hunger can affect a child’s focus and hinder their learning. It reports that one in five Canadian children lives in a food insecure household. It adds that hungry kids experience 27% higher anxiety levels compared to other students.

In F2022, President’s Choice Children’s Charity disbursed $3.5m to five organizations. Its three largest grant recipients were Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada ($2.0m), Pathways to Education Canada ($1.0m), and The Governing Council of the University of Toronto ($500k). The grant to the University of Toronto aims to support the study of long-term effects of food access and food education programs on children across Canada.

The charity’s Power Full Kids initiative is divided into three programs. In F2022, President’s Choice Children’s Charity ran Power Full Kids programs in 2,370 locations across Canada, reaching 843,000 children.

Power Full Kids | Eat Well

The Eat Well program provides snacks and meals to kids at school. In F2022, the program ran in 1,700 schools and provided 116,036,976 meals and snacks to 717,000 children. The charity’s Equipment Fund provides eligible schools with the supplies they need to run the Eat Well program.

Power Full Kids | Grow & Cook

The Grow & Cook program provides supplies so that educators can teach children cooking and gardening skills. In F2022, 25,900 children participated in the program.

Power Full Kids | Future Growers

The Future Growers program encourages food sovereignty in Indigenous communities. Every year, a school in an Indigenous community receives a container farm and supplies to grow produce. This provides an alternate classroom setting.

A Charity Intelligence 2022 Top 10 Canadian Youth Impact Charity

President’s Choice Children’s Charity received $23.3m in donations and special events revenue in F2022. Loblaw Companies, a national grocery store chain, has made a corporate donation of $2.0m for the past seven years to pay for all of the charity's administrative expenses and some operational expenses. President’s Choice Children’s Charity’s administrative costs are 5% of revenues (less investment income), and fundraising costs are 3% of donations and special events revenue (excluding the corporate donation). For every dollar donated to the charity, 92 cents are available for programs. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

President’s Choice Children’s Charity has $12.9m in reserve funds, which can cover just under nine months of annual program costs. It has committed to grant $500k to other charities in 2023.

President’s Choice Children’s Charity used to have an independent stand-alone charity called Breakfast for Learning. In 2017, Breakfast for Learning was fully integrated into President’s Choice Children’s Charity. The charity now directly funds the school meal programs.

This charity report is an update that has been sent to President’s Choice Children’s Charity for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on July 3, 2023 by Victoria Allder.