I can tell you that I was a teacher—a teaching principal, actually—in rural New Brunswick until June of 2015, so I know very well the effects of poverty on a child's learning. When you have children arriving at school without having had breakfast or perhaps not a healthy supper the night before, their last thoughts are on learning. Their thoughts are on food. Your brain just does not work properly if it's not had sufficient sustenance.
I know that in our school and in many schools there are breakfast programs. There are schools that are fundraising in order to have enough or that are applying for grants that will supplement any provincial budget that they may have for food. We're providing breakfasts, we're providing lunches, and we're ensuring that kids do not go hungry—or we're hoping to. There are even places where children are given backpacks of food to take home for the weekend.
Schools are doing that and community groups are doing that, because we know the importance of food for learning. Your brain just doesn't work properly unless you have it, and the thoughts of a child are not on what the task at hand is but on their belly that's rumbling.