By PEACE IJIYERA
AT a time when many families are doing it tough, Spoonfull by Eat Up, a pilot in-schools meals program, has partnered with Moe’s Elizabeth Street Primary School to ensure no child goes without lunch.
The school has been running the program since the start of Term 3, providing all 78 students with free lunch every day.
Research reveals one in three Australian children are going to school without lunch. This has negative impacts on their learning, energy levels and behaviour.
Eat Up is a not-for-profit organisation that, with the help of volunteers, makes and delivers thousands of cheese sandwiches that can be made into toasties, nationwide.
Photograph: Peace Ijiyera
The not-for-profit organisation is currently trialling Spoonfull. Still in the early stages, this program has the opportunity to be implemented at three schools over the next two years.
With Elizabeth Street being the first, the plan is to provide students with hot meals on Mondays and Fridays and other nutritional lunch options throughout the week. The students will also be able to get involved in the lunch action by making their own wraps, rolls and sandwiches.
Welfare Officer at the school, Carol O’Reilly, described working with Spoonfull to deliver this program as “easy”.
“All the food is supplied by them, so it’s no cost for our school. We are so very lucky,” she said.
She explained that foods like soups and bolognese sauces come already made. The most the school would have to do is make the pasta.
As well as giving the students nutritious food to eat, the program also invites them to try new foods and experience new flavours.
Founder of Eat Up, Lyndon Galea, explained that the idea to create Eat Up came in 2013, after he read a newspaper report highlighting the issue of children going to school hungry.
This inspired him to make sandwiches at home and donate them to schools. That has turned into supporting nearly 1300 schools nationwide today.
“Our hope very specifically is looking at schools where they’re having some difficulties with cost-of-living pressures,” he said.
“And we don’t want to exacerbate any sort of stigma, but make mealtime something that becomes a really powerful connection to school, gets kids to school more often, makes it that little bit easier for families doing it tough and becomes a really cherished special memory of going to school, is sharing these wonderful meals and being introduced to new foods as well.”
Mr Galea explained that a lot of fruit and vegetables are purchased from local businesses and food is donated by charity organisations like Warragul-based Frankie’s Community Kitchen. They also receive support from Australian Venue Co and Community Capital.
Mr Galea and Ms O’Reilly hope that Elizabeth Street Primary School will be a good example for other schools to follow.
“The more connections we make to make this program grow and potentially engage with other schools, or to be a really shining example, without that funding at the moment from government, is going to help us continue and hopefully show a broader example,” Mr Galea said.
On the day the Express visited the school, students were served with tomato soup, bread rolls and some peaches for dessert – perfect for the cold and windy day it was.
The dining room was filled with chatter as the students ate their lunch.
Ms O’Reilly is thankful for the partnership and is excited to see how it benefits the students.
She wished to thank the school’s leadership team, staff and parents who have made this program a success.
For more information on Eat Up, visit: https://www.eatup.org.au/
