REGINA, Sask. — Regina Food for Learning is opening the doors to its new home, giving the public a first look at a facility that could dramatically expand how many Regina children the organization can feed.
The organization will host its new location open house Oct. 2 at 10 a.m. at 1440 Scarth St., marking a major milestone after nearly four decades of preparing food for students across the city.
The new building is roughly five to six times larger than Regina Food for Learning’s longtime kitchen at the Core Ritchie Neighbourhood Centre.
Executive director Lin Gennutt says the additional space is particularly significant because demand has outgrown the organization’s previous capacity.
“At least six schools we've had to turn away in the past few years,” Gennutt said earlier this year. “If you look back over the last 10 years, it’s tripled at least.”
The new facility is designed specifically for Regina Food for Learning’s operations, giving staff and volunteers more room to prepare, store and distribute food.
The organization served 17 schools during the last school year and distributed more than 20,000 pounds of food. With the expanded facility, it has committed to serving 25 schools during the 2026-27 school year.
Regina Food for Learning has been operating since 1988. In the 2025-26 school year, it provided 177,213 meals and has served more than 3.5 million meals since its founding.
The work is carried out by just four part-time staff alongside a dedicated volunteer team. That model helps keep the cost of a snack to about $1.65 while allowing the organization to direct resources toward feeding students.
The larger facility is also expected to improve purchasing and storage capacity. Gennutt has said additional space will allow the organization to buy larger quantities of food and take advantage of sales, helping control costs as demand grows.
For the children receiving the food, the need is about more than convenience.
“For a lot of those kids, the only meal they're getting that day is the one they get at school,” Gennutt said. “So we want to make sure that it's nutritionally sound, that it tastes good, and that they're getting new experiences and trying new foods.”
That work is now happening from a facility built to accommodate the organization’s growth rather than constrain it.
The Oct. 2 open house will give Regina residents an opportunity to see that operation firsthand and learn more about how food moves from the new kitchen into classrooms across the city.
For Gennutt, the purpose behind the expansion remains straightforward.
“We want to feed kids. That's the bottom line,” she said.
