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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - It took a trade show frequented by some 800 educators in Yellowknife to give Dana Britton an epiphany about her career choice.

“The lady in the booth beside me said, 'Wow you know everyone.'”

The NWT Food First program aims to get kids hooked on healthy food choices, left, as opposed to the less healthy options on the right.

Since 2004, Britton has headed the Food First Foundation, a program that provides healthy snacks and breakfasts to kids at 35 schools around the territory. The job has taken her all around the North and kept her in contact with legions of educators and professionals in the NWT and Nunavut.

“It was like one big cocktail party,” she said of the trade show, part of the week's NWT Teacher's Association conference. “I was meeting all these people I've been working with for years through e-mail and phone calls but never met.”

Food First NWT is the Northern arm of Breakfast for Learning, a national program that provides healthy breakfasts and snacks to school children across the country. Healthy food choices aren't available to everyone in the territory, Britton said. So the program tries to level the playing field, giving kids the fuel they need to concentrate and perform better in class.

Aside from flying fresh fruits and vegetables out to the communities, she said the program encourages kids to make healthy life choices, with programs like Kids in the Kitchen.

“Kids get to learn how to prepare a healthy meal and shop for healthy foods,” she said. And often, kids take these skills home to their families. The program runs in nine schools around the territory.

Britton said she is more than happy with her tenure at the foundation. Once solely funded by its national counterpart, the program now pulls in 80 per cent of its own funding, thanks in part to partners like BHP, Air Tindi and Canadian North.

“But there's still so much to do,” she said.

There are plans to expand Kids in the Kitchen, as well as put out a Healthy Canteen Handbook to convince Northern sporting arenas to choose healthier snacks for athletes and fans. “Chocolate milk is a really good sports drink,” she said, as an example.

“It's so rewarding,” she said of her job. And the feeling was only enhanced by meeting teachers all week at the conference.

“You see the difference we're making,” she said. “These teachers face a lot of challenges. If the program can help at all, that's just fantastic.”