Can you help?

I am posting this request for assitance in the hope that it will get to a wider audience than just recipients of our school newsletter.

At last we are ready to start kitchen and garden classes! For the next two weeks our menu will be:

 

Pizza of the Imagination

Pasta with a Herb and Tomato Sauce

Potato Salad

Honeyed Carrots

Mini Frittatas

 

Reasons for selecting these items:

·         Seasonality and availability in our garden

·         Popularity

·         Recipes that allow for lots of student participation

This year we will be operating slightly differently as we no longer have Michael Cook to assist us in the garden and I will not have a teacher assistant in the kitchen.  I am therefore looking for lots of assistance!!  If you, your family or friends can help in any of the following ways I will be very grateful:

·         General garden work  - single days/hours or a regular visit

·         Assistance in the kitchen -  any time between 9.00 and 2.00 to assist with preparation prior to the class, participation in the class, eating with the staff and students, washing up

·         Assistance in the garden class – working with the students between 9.30 and 10.30 in the garden

·         Donation of seedlings – any vegetable seedlings please, we need lots to plant right now

·         Donation of hay – I need about 4 bales of hay per term for the chickens and mulch

·         Donation of a dehydrator

If you can assist with any of these things please send me a message through school or email me at pauline.snell@education.tas.gov.au .

 

 

Stephanie Alexander visits Southern Support School

Last Wednesday we were delighted to welcome VIPs from the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation for a tour of our kitchen and garden facilities. Our guests were none other than Stephanie herself plus her Chief Executive Officer and her Projects Manager.

Stephanie was on a short visit to Tasmania for a number of meetings but was keen to fit in a visit to a school – I am told by Foundation staff that we were her first choice!  Stephanie has recently been awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in this year’s Australia Day Honours. The award citation commended Stephanie for her ‘distinguished service to education through the design and establishment of schools-based learning programs promoting improved food and eating choices for children, and as an author’. She has also been chosen for a 2014 Australia Post Legends Award and her portrait can be seen on current 60 cent stamps.

Sherry and I spent a very enjoyable hour with Stephanie and her staff. We started with a cup of tea and biscuits in our SAKGP dining area. I decided to make some biscuits using a recipe from the ‘Stephanie Alexander Cook’s App’ that I had recently purchased for my I Pad and was quite thrilled when she ate one and then asked for another!!

 

While we sat and talked about how we run the program Stephanie and her colleagues took countless photos and Stephanie even made notes as we talked. They were certainly impressed with our work!

 

 

 

We then moved on to the garden and once again our guests were very impressed with all that we are doing. The garden is looking wonderful at the moment, full of fruit and vegetables and now has lots of decoration. An artist in Franklin, Jill Bruce, recently painted a sign for our garden and staff member Shaani and her husband have made lovely red watering can plant bed labels and also donated delightful wind catchers.

 

 

 

Stephanie and her staff continued to be impressed when our tour moved into the Garden Classroom. We demonstrated the Interactive Whiteboard Activity that students participate in prior to their kitchen and garden classes and gave them the opportunity to inspect our wall displays and learning resources. Once again many photos were taken and no doubt will be seen shortly on the SAKGP web-site.

 

It was certainly an honour and a great pleasure to have Stephanie visit our school.