Students sat together in the school hall for lunch, whether they had a hot meal or their own lunch from home.
Students sat together in the school hall for lunch, whether they had a hot meal or their own lunch from home.
Five to eight volunteers plus 150 meals equals a school full of well-nourished children for one day a week at least.
Every Monday during the winter term, a tiny team of volunteers served up 150 hot meals, free of charge, to Churton School students.
Doreen Hardy, the driving force behind the initiative by the school's PTA, is passionate about ensuring children have nourishing food and also learn social skills that will help them through life.
"I've always been conscious of the fact that there are some kids who are hungry but this is not just about feeding them, but the associated stuff that goes with it," Hardy said.
She gives the example of her "very picky" grandson in the United Kingdom who refused to eat. However, at school he got school dinners and, through the experience of sitting with his mates at lunchtime, began to eat.
"We decided if we were going to feed them, it had to be a knife and fork job, sitting at the table and they had to be all together," Hardy said.
"The principal Andrew Spence is very keen on things you do having an educational context.
"We didn't force anybody to eat anything but we encouraged them to try it and if they didn't like it, that was fine. It was about learning not to be scared of new foods.
"There was a real buzz on Mondays at school. We didn't have a big enough and long enough programme to prove the kids performed better at school but the kids looked forward to it."
The hot meals are only intended to be a winter term initiative.
Most of the volunteers were mums, dads or grandmothers of children at the school but one volunteer had no association with the school at all. However, Hardy said the volunteer pool of up to eight people, but sometimes only five, was too small.
"What we really need is a team of around 15. If we had a big enough team we could allocate jobs at different times during the day.
"Whether we pick it up next winter depends on if we can get enough volunteers and if they are committed enough."
Volunteer Freda is the grandmother of a Churton School student.
The meals cost about $1 per head.
"We couldn't have done it without financial support from the Churton School PTA, GOMES, New World, Countdown, Pak'n Save and the Mad Butcher as well as a few individuals who donated vouchers and goods in kind, great fresh root vegetables, oranges from trees at home, pumpkins from gardens," Hardy said.
"And we couldn't have done it without the whole hearted support of Andrew Spence and the staff who made it possible by their enthusiasm and by getting the kids organised in the school hall, and making sure they all had time settle, be served and eat."
Doreen Hardy has researched the benefits of providing food in schools. Here is her philosophy behind the hot school lunch programme:
"If you start feeding the kids at school, the parents will become dependant."
If I had a dollar for every time somebody said that to me I wouldn't have had to go cap in hand to so many organisations looking for some sponsorship so that we could give every pupil at Churton School a free, hot meal every Monday this term.
I refuse to believe that any school in our district doesn't have at least one child that goes to school hungry, or at least one child that doesn't have an adequate, nutritious lunch in their school bag. (A large packet of chips just doesn't cut it!) So yes, we fed some hungry children, and yes, it felt good to do so. However, the picture is much bigger than that.
Did you know that in Finland, every student from starting school to finishing at 18 is served a free meal every day? The government pays. Only they don't see it as a free school meal.
"…you pay for it when you grow up and contribute hundreds of thousands if not more to the economic system in Finland. Feed the kids so they can learn. No, it isn't free, you pay for it yourself by succeeding." http://www.foodrepublic.com/2017/02/21/do-finlands-school-lunches-help-students/
We also wanted to take the opportunity to encourage the children to make good choices by offering them raw vegetables to nibble on while waiting, and to offer them the opportunity to choose between vegetables, or to try them all, to have a taste of something new, to experience the joys of eating at a table with their friends.
We also believe that a full tummy can reduce incidences of bad behaviour. A hungry child can be disruptive whereas a class full of children with a nutritious meal inside them can allow the teachers to teach rather than address issues of behaviour.
So were we successful? Anecdotal evidence would say yes. The children enthusiastically took part in our programme, and even those who continued to take lunch from home sat and ate with their peers. By and large they were well behaved and well mannered. Serving our hot meals on a Monday gave those who might otherwise be reluctant to come to school, a good reason to be there. And when one of the small girls told a volunteer that she loved the oranges, and that she'd never tasted them before, well that says it all, doesn't it?
