A few hundred kids didn’t go hungry at lunchtime today due to the helping hands of two Stamps players.

Rob Cote and Rene Paredes spent Tuesday morning at the kitchen facility of Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids, a local organization that strives to provide lunches for all local schoolchildren without a midday meal.

“We made a bunch of sandwiches today,” began Cote. “I was on the egg salad station and it was a friendly competition with the pea butter and jam station which Rene was on. And we chopped some fruit and bagged some veggies – enough to feed just about 1,300 kids today.”

Now in its 27th year of operation, Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids supplies lunches for a total of 3,200 kids on any given day. The meals that aren’t packed in their downtown kitchen are put together on their behalf by 200 community groups at various locations throughout the city.

Approximately 600 local citizens volunteer from Monday to Thursday at Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids, a figure which includes drivers who deliver the freshly made lunches to nearby schools.

“I’ve been a part of a couple fundraisers for Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids but I had never actually packed any lunches,” Cote explained. “So I really wanted to get behind the scenes and see the work that they’re doing. I’ve been aware of what they do and how important it is that all the kids in Calgary sent to school without enough to eat have full tummies to make sure they can learn at their best and be healthy. It was amazing to be a part of it.”

Paredes, meanwhile, was back for the second consecutive year. One of his responsibilities was to transfer the food to numerous bins for the drivers to then pick up.

“Everybody here is happy to be doing this,” beamed Cote. “Everybody is here because they want to help out and they feel good about it, so they make me feel good about it. It was a really good morning.”

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