Chartwells Canada launches partnership with WE to empower students across Canada to make a difference through their everyday food choices

Through the WE Special meal, students in over 600 Chartwells elementary, secondary and post-secondary locations across Canada will have the opportunity to make life-changing impacts with their meal purchases

TORONTO, Sept. 18, 2018 /CNW/ - Today, Chartwells Canada and WE, a family of organizations that makes doing good doable, announced a new partnership to empower young people to make a difference through the food they eat. Available at more than 600 Chartwells' elementary, secondary and post-secondary locations across Canada, the Chartwells WE Special is more than a meal with a portion of the proceeds from every special purchased supporting the Food pillar of WE's holistic sustainable development model, WE Villages. By purchasing the special, students are joining a movement to enable one million meals to individuals in WE's partner communities.

"We are thrilled to be partnering with WE to empower students to deliver change," said Ashton Sequeira, President, Chartwells Canada. "Our students really care about doing good for others and they vocalize this in many ways. We've listened to them and have brought in a partnership with WE that gives them an opportunity to help change the world each day they come to school. Students are presented with hundreds of food choices every day, and with the WE Special, we're making it easier for students to make a difference in the world.  Chartwells is always looking for sustainable ways to give back, and we're confident that this partnership will create lasting benefits in the communities WE serves."

WE Villages is built on five pillars of impact ? Food, Education, Water, Health and Opportunity ? with the Food pillar focusing on innovative farming techniques helping to ensure communities have access to healthy, self-sustaining food sources. Students can see how they are making a difference thanks to a one-of-a-kind number provided with every Chartwells WE Special, which includes WE's Track Your Impact promise, a simple code that gives students the opportunity to connect the dots from the meal they purchased directly to the community they are supporting.

"Through the generous commitment of Chartwells, Canada's leading educational foodservice provider, young change-makers from kindergarten to post-secondary will be able to give back in a new way by fueling their everyday meal choices to do good," said Craig Kielburger, co-founder of WE. "By supporting communities overseas in building food security, a ripple effect is created. The health of community members flourishes with access to nutrient-rich foods, including students, who develop energy and focus to be successful learners in the classroom. In turn, farmers earn a sustainable source of income and can send their children to school, which creates opportunity for their future."

The WE partnership is a key element of Chartwells' Thinking Ahead Giving Back initiative which will see the company engaging with students on a higher level and working with them to tackle some of the key social concerns they face every day.

Through Thinking Ahead Giving Back, Chartwells has pledged to:

• Deliver 1,000,000 meals both domestically and globally to tackle food insecurity,
• Provide 10,000 hours of community support around mental health and social challenges facing our students, and
• Create 1,000 jobs through a more focused commitment to student employment

Alongside the WE Special meal, select Chartwells' post-secondary dining locations will sell product from ME to WE, WE's innovative social enterprise that offers products that change lives including ME to WE Chocolate and ME to WE Rafiki bracelets:

• ME to WE Chocolate is an award-winning treat sustainably made in Ecuador in partnership with local cacao farmers. The product also supports WE's Education pillar, which helps build schools and provide the essentials for students to learn.
• In Swahili, rafiki means friends and ME to WE Rafiki bracelets are handmade by artisans in Kenya and inspired by Maasai beading traditions with colourful strands of glass beads. As part of ME to WE's Artisans initiative, over 1,400 Kenyan Mamas and over 100 women in Ecuador in communities where WE works are now employed full time and make a fair wage (2.2 times the average wage).

Chartwells will also support WE Well-being, a new initiative from WE that aims to empower people of all ages with tools and resources to promote and nurture their own positive well-being and the well-being of their community. Chartwells will fund the delivery of WE Well-being workshops free to students at targeted post-secondary institutions across Canada, beginning this fall.

Chartwells operates in over 600 partner schools, employs more than 6,000 associates and serves over 50 million meals every year. For more information on Chartwells, please visit www.Compass-Canada.com.

Chartwells Canada ? Compass Group Canada
Chartwells Canada is a sector of Compass Group Canada, the country's leading foodservice and support services provider with over 25,000 associates working throughout the country. The company specializes in providing foodservices and support services across the core sectors including leading sports and leisure venues, executive dining rooms and cafes, schools, universities, seniors' residences and hospitals as well as remote camps and off shore oil rigs. With over 550,000 associates worldwide, its parent company, UK-based Compass Group PLC, has been named in the Forbes Global 2000 ? World's Best Employer list for 2017. Compass Group PLC had revenues of £22.9 billion in the fiscal year ended September 30, 2017.

WE 
WE is a family of organizations making doing good, doable. WE is made up of WE Charity, empowering domestic and international change, ME to WE, a social enterprise that creates socially conscious products and experiences to help support the charity, and WE Day, filling stadiums around the world with the greatest celebration of social good. WE enables youth and families to better the world ? supporting 7,200+ local and global causes by volunteering millions of hours of service, shopping daily with an impact, and raising millions of dollars that directly benefit their local communities and the world. Globally, our teams in Asia, Africa, and Latin America have provided more than 1 million people with clean water, built 1,000 schools and schoolrooms overseas, and empowered more than 200,000 children with access to education. WE was founded more than 20 years ago by social entrepreneurs, brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger. Join the movement today at WE.org.

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SOURCE Chartwells School Dining