First Street Market and Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids have teamed up for a month-long campaign that turns every purchase into a lunch for a Calgary child. Here is everything you need to know before June 30th.

We share a lot of food content, restaurants we love, markets worth visiting, date nights that surprised us, experiences that made us glad we said yes. Most of the time the reason we share something is because it delivered something genuinely good and we want you to have that too. This one is different, and we want to be upfront about why.

First Street Feeds Kids is a month-long campaign running from June 5th to June 30th at First Street Market in Calgary, and it is built around one of the most straightforward and impactful ideas we have come across in a long time. You go to First Street Market, you order from a participating vendor, and $2 from that purchase goes directly to Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids. First Street Market matches that $2, turning every single campaign item purchased into a $4 donation, enough to provide one nutritious lunch for a Calgary child facing food insecurity.

You were probably going to eat somewhere this month anyway. This is a reason to make it First Street Market.

What First Street Market Is

If you have not been to First Street Market yet, we want to give you the full picture because it is genuinely one of the better food and drink spaces in Calgary and it deserves more conversation than it gets.

First Street Market was designed by Calgarians for Calgarians, which is a phrase that gets used a lot and means something here. Nine carefully selected vendors representing an array of cultures and cuisines operate out of an open-concept space that opens up onto an enormous patio with TVs, heaters, and park views that make it the kind of place you show up to for lunch and find yourself still at when the sun goes down. The bar is a highlight in its own right, pulling together craft beer, complex wines, and spirits in a way that makes it one of the more complete drinking destinations in the city.

No reservations, open seating, the kind of environment where laughing and lingering are actively encouraged rather than tolerated. It is a genuinely good place to spend time, and the fact that spending time there this June also feeds a Calgary kid makes it an easy recommendation.

What Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids Actually Does

We want to spend real time on this because BB4CK is doing work that the city depends on in ways most people don’t fully see, and we think it matters to understand the organization before we ask you to support it.

Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids has been operating in Calgary for 35 years. Every single school day, close to 8,000 children in kindergarten through grade 12 across more than 280 Calgary schools receive a nutritious lunch through BB4CK. That lunch includes sandwiches, fruits, vegetables, baked goods, and snacks, and it is prepared by more than 800 volunteers working in BB4CK’s central and community kitchens across the city. There is no waitlist. Every child who needs a lunch receives one.

In a city where 2 in 5 kids in Alberta live in food-insecure households, BB4CK has built a program that does not ask children to wait their turn for something as fundamental as food. They show up every school day and they make it happen, and they do it through a community of volunteers, donors, and partners who understand that a child who arrives at school hungry cannot learn, cannot focus, and cannot simply push through it the way an adult might try to.

The $4 donation generated by every First Street Feeds Kids campaign item purchase provides one lunch. One sandwich, one piece of fruit, one baked good, one child who gets to focus on what they are supposed to be focusing on that day instead of on hunger. That is the direct line between your lunch order and a kid’s school day, and it is about as clear and immediate an impact as charitable giving gets.

Why This Matters to Us

Made For Wanderers started as a way to share the best of Calgary with the people who live here. Every restaurant we review, every event we show up to, every market we walk through on a Thursday evening is rooted in a genuine love for this city and the community that makes it worth wandering through.

But loving a city means more than sharing the good parts. It means showing up for the parts that need support too. Calgary has given us so much, the local businesses we champion, the neighbourhoods we explore, the community of Wanderers who follow along and trust our recommendations, and we believe that comes with a responsibility to use whatever platform we have for something that matters beyond the next dinner reservation.

Food insecurity among children is not a distant problem. It is happening in Calgary, in the schools that sit in the same neighbourhoods where we find our favourite coffee shops and date night spots. The idea that 2 in 5 kids in Alberta live in food-insecure households and that thousands of Calgary children arrive at school every day without enough to eat is something we cannot scroll past and feel good about it.

First Street Feeds Kids makes it genuinely easy to do something about it without asking anything extraordinary from you. You eat at a place worth eating at, you order from the campaign menu, and a child in Calgary gets lunch. That is the whole ask, and for a community of people who already show up for this city every week, we think that is an easy yes.

How It Works and What to Do

Between now and June 30th, visit First Street Market at 1 Street SW in Calgary and order from any participating vendor’s campaign menu items. The vendor donates $2 from every campaign item purchased. First Street Market matches that $2. The resulting $4 donation goes directly to BB4CK and provides one lunch for one Calgary child.

The simplicity of it is part of what makes it so worth participating in.

If you want to go further than a single visit, bring your friends, bring your partner, bring your family, and tell people about it. The campaign runs through June 30th and every visit within that window contributes. The more people who know about it, the more lunches get made.

First Street Market is located downtown and open for lunch and dinner through the full campaign period. No reservations required, open seating throughout, and a patio that is genuinely one of the better places to sit in Calgary on a June evening.

Final Thought

June is a good month in Calgary. The city is alive, the patios are open, and there are a hundred reasons to be out and enjoying it. This June, First Street Market is giving you one more reason and this one comes with the knowledge that your lunch is doing something that matters beyond the meal itself.

Go to First Street Market. Order from the campaign menu. Tell someone else to do the same.

Wander over to First Street Market this June, because we believe we are all made to wander and the best wandering always takes care of the community it moves through.