KickStart Breakfast

The below article is a great example of how one of our KickStart Breakfast schools is taking real ownership of their breakfast club and providing more variety for their students. The story by Jill Cleave was run by the Hauraki Herald on 24 June 2011.

Garage sale rewards to fill hungry tummies

Waihi East School is the place to find garage sale bargains tomorrow and also to help children get their school day off to the proper start.

The school is holding a garage sale, with the money raised going towards its Breakfast Club.

“Breakfast is served every morning of the week to anyone who wants to come along and we have a Big Breakfast once a term for the whole school,” principal Emily Hargreaves said.

The club is parent run and supported by Fonterra and Sanitarium, which provide milk and cereals.

Mrs Hargreaves said the garage sale money would be spent on things like Milo and toast spreads. The garage sale starts at 8am tomorrow at the school in Donnell St.

Thank you to everyone who recently took part in our KickStart Breakfast “Cash for Clubs” competition. 

We received a huge amount of applications with each and every one deserving to win the cash. The ideas generated on how the money was going to be spent on your KickStart Breakfast Clubs were incredible and ranged from purchasing fruit tree seedlings and preserving jars to water-coolers and kitchen appliances.

Based on the uniqueness of your idea(s) and the benefits this will bring to your students and breakfast club, our judging team selected four winning schools that are:

Uruti School
James Street School
Taupiri School
Somerset Crescent School

Congratulations to our four winners that will each receive $1,000 for their KickStart Breakfast Club. All winners have been notified via email and phone and were delighted to win.

Thank you again for entering the competition and all the best for the remainder of this term.

Your KickStart Breakfast Team

Check out our photo gallery on the about page to see some great pic's of our winners.

KickStart Breakfast the school breakfast programme, run by Fonterra and Sanitarium, has today celebrated serving its two millionth breakfast for Kiwi children on World Milk Day, 1 June 2011.

To mark the occasion rookie chef and leading New Zealand rugby player, Richard Kahui, and popular children’s TV host, Erin Simpson, joined the kids of Auckland’s Panama Road School for a special celebration breakfast. The school was one of the founding KickStart Breakfast Clubs in the programme which has since expanded to over 430 participating decile 1-4 schools across New Zealand.

Fonterra Director of External Relations, Kelvin Wickham, says KickStart is a breakfast education club that’s about a lot more than just the nutritious food.

“It’s great to see the difference a good breakfast makes to all the things children like to achieve. Fonterra is very proud of our work with Sanitarium to encourage New Zealand’s younger generation to acquire good eating habits at breakfast and enjoy the social and educational benefits of preparing and eating food together,” Mr Wickham said.

Mr Wickham said the celebration had a special significance because it fell on World Milk Day.

“We’re not only celebrating KickStart Breakfast’s two millionth breakfast, it’s also World Milk Day which is all about celebrating the goodness of milk – a near perfect food loaded with nine essential nutrients – and a great way to ‘kick start’ your day.”

Mr Wickham said the twice a week breakfast clubs operate on a sustainable community partnership model.

“With Fonterra and Sanitarium providing the milk and cereal, and local teachers, parents and the community providing the supervision and coaching, the model encourages the kids into healthy eating which benefits learning without undermining the responsibilities of families to provide a daily breakfast.”

General Manager at Sanitarium, Pierre van Heerden, says schools report that children are happier, have more energy and are able to concentrate more.

“The KickStart Breakfast programme is a natural fit with our focus within the community. We know that breakfast is particularly critical for children, helping to improve their behaviour, concentration, memory and learning ability at school. This programme has responded by helping them develop good long term attitudes and health habits for a lifetime,” says Mr van Heerden.

Since establishing the programme in 2008, Fonterra and Sanitarium have also worked closely with the New Zealand Red Cross, who until recently offered their own Breakfast in Schools programme exclusively for decile 1 schools. 61 schools affected by the closure of the Red Cross programme have now been invited to join KickStart Breakfast.

“We are keen to support the Red Cross to manage this change and help the affected schools by welcoming them into the KickStart Breakfast programme as our community partnership model has a lot to offer these schools and students over a sustained period of time,” Mr Wickham said.

Serving over 30,000 nutritious breakfasts to more than 16,000 children in 433 schools every week, Fonterra and Sanitarium provide Anchor Mega Milk and Weet-Bix to participating decile 1-4 schools throughout the country.

We've developed some vibrant KickStart Breakfast posters to help give kids a further understanding of why breakfast is important.  They have clear punchy messages and will help to make your club fun as well as educational.

The posters are in A3 size and are easy to download and print, simply click on the PDF icon below.  They will look great as is, or for longer lasting posters, simply laminate.  Use them as posters to decorate your club, hang them as a banner or even use them as placemats.

If you would like to see other messages, simply let us know and we will develop these for you.

Enjoy!

On the 20th June this year, just over two years since the programme’s inception, KickStart Breakfast will provide the two millionth breakfast! Help us celebrate and we will send you free KickStart Breakfast aprons!

That’s two million times KickStart kids have felt happy, full and ready to start their school day. We all know the benefits of eating a healthy breakfast are significant.  You regularly tell us students love coming to breakfast club to chat with their friends, that social skills and table manners are developing, students in class concentration levels are improving and that students are generally happier.

We want to celebrate our 2 millionth breakfast to encourage all students to eat healthy breakfasts regularly.  With your help we could celebrate the importance of breakfast throughout your local community, you could;

• Hold a family breakfast and invite parents, grandparents, caregivers to attend your breakfast club as well.
• Hold a community breakfast and invite those living within the local area to come and learn about the school and the programmes you run.
• Advertise your breakfast club around the school to increase participation.
• Invite the local MPs, fire-fighters, police or local businesses to attend and share stories about how breakfast helps them KickStart their day.
• Invite the local paper to attend and run a story on your breakfast club.

To help you decorate your club, we have developed some posters with some key messages around KickStart Breakfast.  These are easy to download and print in A3, they would look great as is or even laminated.

If you do plan to hold a celebration breakfast throughout June, let us know your plan and we will send you a KickStart Breakfast Apron, but be quick its first in first serve!