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Leading food companies Fonterra and Sanitarium today welcomed the 300th school into the KickStart Breakfast programme, their innovative partnership with schools and communities to ensure more New Zealand children get a healthy start to the school day with a nutritious breakfast.
The 300th school to join the programme is Lincoln Heights School in Massey, Waitakere which marked the milestone with a special breakfast for the 40 young students in its Wednesday breakfast club with Fonterra Special Advisor Barry Harris and Sanitarium General Manager Pierre van Heerden.
Lincoln Heights School Principal Debbie Waikato said that joining KickStart Breakfast would be a real boost for the school’s breakfast club. “Weekly delivery of free milk and cereal from Fonterra and Sanitarium will be the cornerstone of our breakfasts and will complement the great support we also receive from our local community to ensure all Lincoln Heights children can get the right start to their school day,” Mrs Waikato said.
The rapid uptake of KickStart Breakfast since its launch as a pilot in April last year shows the programme is meeting an important need in schools, says Barry Harris. “We’ve had fantastic feedback from teachers which confirms the value of the programme and that a healthy breakfast is a key building block for a successful day at school. Many schools report that students in the programme are more focused and ready to get down to work, and are learning valuable new social skills through the KickStart Breakfast,” Mr Harris said.
The partnership between Sanitarium and Fonterra is a great example of two companies working together to promote health and nutrition in our communities, says Sanitarium GM Pierre van Heerden.
“Kickstart Breakfast is based around a community partnership model - Sanitarium and Fonterra providing the cereal and milk and each school and community taking responsibility for preparing and delivering this to students each week. We are committed to improving the health and wellbeing of our communities, and KickStart Breakfast helps give kids an opportunity to have breakfast,” Mr van Heerden said.
Every week, KickStart Breakfast provides Anchor Mega Milk and Sanitarium Weet-Bix to 300 low-decile schools, with the aim of educating children about the difference a nutritious breakfast can make. More than 12,000 students consume over 24,000 breakfasts a week through the programme.
The schools participating to date are approximately 80% primary and 20% secondary schools, with around 80% of the schools located in the North Island. Approximately 60% of the schools are rated decile 1 and 2, with the balance in the decile 3 and 4 range.
Mr Harris said KickStart Breakfast could not operate without the care and enthusiasm of school principals, staff, parents and whanau who volunteer their time to organise the breakfasts in each school.Last month the KickStart Breakfast programme was recognised with a Social Heroes Award from New Zealand Prime Minister John Key. Currently Fonterra and Sanitarium invest around $750,000 per year in KickStart Breakfast.
With the milestone of 300 schools reached, they have now set their sights on providing the KickStart Breakfasts to 500 schools in the decile 1-4 range to reach even more of the estimated 100,000 New Zealand families who are finding it difficult to manage budgets and family meals.For more information visit www.KickStartBreakfast.co.nz
Piet de Jong, Fonterra Communications – 021 812 766 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 021 812 766 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 021 812 766 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 021 812 766 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Piet.dejong@fonterra.com
Kim Stirling, Communications Manager, Sanitarium – 09 6250765 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 09 6250765 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 09 6250765 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 09 6250765 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or 021 761089 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 021 761089 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 021 761089 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 021 761089 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
kim.stirling@sanitarium.co.nzWhat schools are saying about Fonterra-Sanitarium KickStart Breakfast
“What a positive start for 30 or so of our children, teachers, support staff and principal have to our working day in our KickStart Breakfast club.” Jessie Richardson, Porirua School
“The children are more focused, their attention span has increased and their general behaviour has improved.” Dana Turnbull, Deputy Principal, East Gore Primary School
“It’s great to promote healthy eating. Our breakfast mornings are family occasions and the students are loving it.” Emily Hargreaves, Principal, Waihi East School
“The teachers have noticed that the children coming to class after having breakfast are certainly a lot happier with themselves and are able to concentrate on their class work a lot better.” Lynette Braithwaite, Office Manager, Mountview School, Taupo
“The students look forward to breakfast at school and are much more settled in class. Many students can now see the benefit of eating healthy breakfasts and the message they take home to their families and communities is encouraging.” Rosemary Grieve, Mangakahia Area School.
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As KickStart Breakfast clocks up six months since launching, the programme is now working with close to 300 schools and their breakfast clubs across New Zealand. Strathmore School in Tokoroa has been on board with the programme since term two on this year (2009).
Strathmore breakfast club co-ordinator, Miss Ifi Hasini viewed the opportunity to get the KickStart Breakfast programme happening in their school earlier this year as extremely good timing. “Teachers were concerned at the alarming number of children not eating breakfast in the morning. Some children viewed a meat pie or a mixed bag of lollies as breakfast.”
Ifi says a wonderful person suggested that the school join up after reading an article in a farming magazine about the KickStart programme. Enquiries were made by the school principal and voila, the Strathmore Breakfast club was established. After running the breakfast club for a term, the numbers of students coming early for breakfast is continuing to increase, and the benefits of learning and eating healthy are starting to show in the way kids think
about food.“In our last breakfast club of term two, we saw the opportunity to show children
the different ways to ‘eat’ Weet-Bix,” Ifi says. “The children were stunned at how
delicious and easy it was to make Weet-Bix smoothies.”The school is rapt with the opportunity Fonterra and Sanitarium have provided to pass the healthy eating message to the children. Strathmore School runs their breakfast club on Mondays and Wednesdays with around 35 students attending each morning.
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Congratulations Southern Cross Campus - Winners of the Un-forget-a-Bull breakfast!
As the winners of KickStart Breakfast’s first nationwide competition, Southern Cross Campus school in South Auckland enjoyed a guest appearance from Anchor Mega Bull for an extra special breakfast club, thanks to their winning breakfast club photos.
Fonterra’s KickStart Breakfast schools were invited to send in their best breakfast club photos for the chance to have Mega Bull visit their club for breakfast, with Southern Cross Campus taking out the top prize with their ‘Breakfast is Cool’ photo.
The student health leaders took the opportunity to promote the KickStart Breakfast club, putting together a presentation and presenting to the school assembly. The aim was to raise awareness for the breakfast club, get more students to come along and to highlight the need for student to have a good breakfast to help kick start their day.
Running on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Southern Cross Campus’ breakfast club caters for
around 20 students and is run by, student health leaders, and is supervised by teachers and supported by the local Life Church volunteers.
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Healthy eating has become such an important focus at Leabank School in Manurewa that parents officially launched a Charitable Trust at the beginning of May. The Trust will support the schools Breakfast Club which helps around 90 children start the day on a full tummy two times a week.
Breakfast co-ordinator Angela Opai says the Charitable Trust will be used to help meet family needs, and to educate parents that healthy eating doesn’t have to be expensive. “The Trust will help families through education, support and guidance, food packages and more – depending on the individual need."
“Already they have assisted Leabank School by providing us with a fridge to store the milk,” says Angela.
The Breakfast Club starts at 8am and is run by parents on a roster system, with approximately three sitting in on each breakfast.
“In addition to the nutritional benefits of breakfast, we teach kids how to conduct themselves properly at the table during meal times. They’re given advice on how to correctly use their utensils, and we encourage them to have conversations with each other."“It is fantastic to see the quieter, shyer students holding conversations with other children – it is very beneficial all round.” Over the course of term one, parent groups and some teachers at Leabank School filled out assessment forms on how they thought the children were performing on club mornings. “The results haven’t been fully collated, but they are very positive, with most teachers noticing an improvement in concentration levels.”
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