Michaela Muncaster is teaching year 2 students at Westbrook about sustainable food practices. They've won a prize from Countdown to fund wormfarms and composters so that the kids can keep feeding the school veggie garden.
Rising food prices are hitting household budgets hard – with one Rotorua food charity saying there has been a sharp increase in the number of people seeking help.
“Words are hard to describe it,” Love Soup treasurer Julie King told the Rotorua Daily Post.
“We’re in very difficult times. We’re dealing with working people, it’s not just unemployed.”
King said Love Soup had distributed “spuds and carrots” to an estimated 200 people two weeks ago.
The organisation rescued 12 tonnes of food last month. On September 11, Love Soup won a Canon Oceania Award worth $15,000 to support its efforts.
“It’s just a fact that there’s so much food waste out there and there’s so many people needing food.”
King said she and her team rescued “ugly” produce such as potatoes that might have a speck of green or were too big for the roasting bag.
“It’s surprising what the market wants but there is food that gets rejected because it doesn’t fit with the marketing.
“We’re giving people the option to use the ugly, misshapen veges.”
King said Love Soup particularly needed more eggs.
“We would love to get eggs. We’d love to connect with suppliers and work alongside them. Sometimes there’s just one cracked egg in the dozen and the rest are fine.”
One solution to the hike in food prices was to encourage people to grow gardens and be more self-sufficient, she said.
Westbrook School’s Year 2 pupils are learning how to live sustainably by growing their own vegetable garden, with some of the produce being used for school lunches.
Westbrook is one of 10 schools across the country that have been given a share of $50,000 by Countdown’s Growing for Good grant.
The grant was awarded this month for ideas that addressed climate change and boosted sustainability in communities.
Westbrook School teacher Michaela Muncaster and her Year 2 class applied for the grant to buy composters and worm farms for the school vege garden.
Muncaster said her students were “really, really happy” to win.
“This week they’ve been putting the worm farms together. We’ve got three composters as well.”
Westbrook School students (left to right) Khylan Marino, 6, Harlie Forlong, 7, Braxton Newson, 6, and Charlotte Holmes, 6, like to garden. Photo / Andrew Warner
Westbrook School has a corner of the grounds fenced off to grow native seedlings for planting by Utuhina Stream. The garden has since expanded to include fruit and citrus trees.
