BMO and The Amazing Race Canada Partner to Reach Hundreds of Regina Students through Donation to Breakfast Club of Canada

BMO employees help serve breakfast to local Regina elementary school students, to mark a bank donation of $20,000 to Breakfast Club of Canada in Saskatchewan. This is one of the BMO200 wish fulfillments happening in communities across North America to celebrate the bank’s bicentennial year. (CNW Group/BMO Financial Group)

• BMO Financial Group donates $20,000 to Breakfast Club of Canada in Saskatchewan
• The Amazing Race Canada teams help serve first breakfast on-air as part of challenge
• Breakfast Club of Canada serves more than 804,000 breakfasts in Saskatchewan each year

TORONTO and REGINA, Aug. 30, 2017 /CNW/ - BMO Financial Group has donated $20,000 to the Breakfast Club of Canada in Regina, as a part of the bank's year of granting wishes across North America for its bicentennial celebration. The contribution will help support new breakfast programs at six Regina-area schools.

BMO granted the surprise wish with help from CTV's The Amazing Race Canada, whose racers served the first-ever breakfast at Douglas Park Elementary School, as seen on the August 29^th episode.

"We're thrilled to fulfill yet another BMO200 wish, and that this one will have an especially positive legacy of bringing breakfast to hundreds of children in Regina who would otherwise go without," says John MacAulay, Senior Vice President, Prairies Central Canada Division, BMO Bank of Montreal. "This wish embodies BMO's unwavering commitment over the past two centuries to help improve the quality of life in the communities where we live and work, and we can't think of a better partner than Breakfast Club of Canada to join us in our efforts."

The bank's donation came in response to a BMO200 customer wish from Saskatchewan's Leanne Stettner, for "funding for breakfast programs at local Regina schools that would be available to all students." Earlier this spring, BMO employees were on hand to reveal to Leanne that her wish had been selected, and Jon Montgomery, host of CTV's The Amazing Race Canada, was also on hand to reveal a second surprise to Leanne – The Amazing Race Canada competitors would be helping to serve the first breakfast to the students, as part of a challenge that would see them race to produce and serve five litres of orange juice.

"Breakfast Club of Canada thanks BMO and The Amazing Race Canada for the opportunity to highlight such an important cause on the national stage," says Josée Desjardins, Vice President, Ontario & Western Canada, Breakfast Club of Canada. "The contribution made by BMO will allow us to reach more children in the Regina region, one breakfast at a time."

"Over the past five seasons The Amazing Race Canada has been welcomed and supported by communities from coast to coast to coast," says Mark Lysakowski, Executive Producer, The Amazing Race Canada "and this season we are thrilled to be working with our partners at BMO to tell this story by making Leanne Stettner's wish come true."

Breakfast Club of Canada in Saskatchewan serves more than 804,000 breakfasts annually, at 32 clubs across the province, with a daily attendance rate of almost five thousand students. In the 2016-17 school year, the organization operated in 1,598 schools across Canada and served close to 33 million breakfasts. To learn more about Breakfast Club of Canada, please visit www.breakfastclubcanada.org/.

Since launching at the beginning of the year, more than 23,300 wishes have been cast from across North America at the BMO200 fountain. BMO continues to encourage North Americans to wish it forward by visiting www.BMO200.com or visiting one of the interactive BMO200 fountains in various cities in the U.S. and Canada, including Montréal, Québec in October 2017.

To see highlights of Leanne's wish being granted, please visit https://twitter.com/BMO/status/902870210109165568  and join the conversation on social using #BMO200.

For more information on the BMO200 campaign, please visit https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8099651-bmo200/

For more stories from BMO and the impact it's been making in communities for 200 years, visit history.bmo.com.

About BMO Financial Group

Established in 1817, and currently marking its 200th year of operations, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified financial services provider based in North America. With total assets of $709 billion as of July 31, 2017, and more than 45,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, Wealth Management and BMO Capital Markets.

About Breakfast Club of Canada

Breakfast Club of Canada is a non-profit organization that provides funding, equipment, training and support to school breakfast programs across the country. We are dedicated to making sure every child starts their day with a meal, helping them thrive at school, and in their community. Founded in Quebec in 1994, Breakfast Club of Canada began to fund and support school breakfast programs nationwide in 2005.

SOURCE BMO Financial Group

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