Legends For A Lunch Time

"You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves." Abraham Lincoln.

In May this year the government announced it will pay 50% for a 'simple breakfast of Weetbix and milk' for Decile 1-2 schools, with the cost balance being split by Fonterra and Sanitarium. Over five years the new programme will cost tax payers $9.5 million.

In June Hone Harawira, MP for Te Tai Tokerau, introduced a Member's bill to provide government-funded breakfast and lunch programmes in decile 1-2 schools. The bill's second reading has been postponed until the end of July and, if passed, will be considered by a parliamentary select committee.

Mr Harawira says he's one vote off achieving progress.

Numerous Far North schools are, in fact, using their own initiative already with or without government assistance.

Just off the main road in Kaikohe, a town which sometimes attracts headlines it would rather not have, is the decile 1Kaikohe East Primary School. In this school can be found a tangible example of what good leadership and enterprise coupled to hard work can achieve in the interest of feeding the kids. At the end of the playing fields is an extensive vegetable garden, planted and managed by the children and supervised by teacher aide, Michelle Hudson.

This year the garden is benefiting from the input of Northtech Horticulture 1 and 2 students as part of the certification curriculum in a collaborative programme between Northtech, the primary school

and whanau of the school.

"When whanau came back from the city they had lost the skill of gardening," says Michelle simply and understating the work that's gone into what she's achieved.

Each class at Kaikohe East primary has cooking lessons using the garden's vegetables; they have preserved produce, they have made relishes. Children are first in line to take vegetables home and if there's a surplus it's sold at the twilight market. The school generates its own compost and Top Energy delivers mulch to the garden which eventually goes back into the soil. Kaikohe East qualifies for the fruit-in-schools programme but even so, their next project is to expand a bike track near the garden and to replant an orchard.

About 20 kilometres away, over the rolling hills of the Ohaeawai Valley and on to SH10, is Oramahoe. If the town isn't sign-posted, what it produces is - cheese, timber and the kindergarten that adopts a Steiner philosophy. On a Monday morning the kindy kids pop next door to the Mahoe Cheese factory to bring back fresh (unprocessed) milk, cheese and quark they will use during the week. Head teacher, Christiane Riegger, says these kiddies understand that milk comes from a cow and can name the veggies in the garden. In the grounds is their own pizza oven.

"We need to teach the children how to plant things," says Ms Reigger. "At harvest time we took apples from the trees, made a cake and went to the marae because they invited us for lunch. The children did everything themselves."

It could be argued that rural schools have much scope for self-sufficiency than city schools because land is more plentiful but Christiane Riegger says even metro schools have land. She'd like to see a goat, a pig, a sheep, a cow and a garden in every school in the country.

Over the road is the 50-pupil Oramahoe School. It's a decile 6 school so doesn't qualify for fruit or Weetbix and it is an 'enviro' school. The lunch boxes are audited to make sure packaging is minimised, whatever is reusable is reused and they teach the kids how to prepare the food themselves. Zero waste is a priority.

Near the playing fields are six raised beds. Each class is responsible for two beds each and this year the Year 8 students (all three of them) are growing garlic for profit. They're also raising native seedlings for riparian planting which they'll sell too. Kids at this school don't go hungry but that doesn't absolve them from learning through planting and striving for self sufficiency and if principal, Annie McGlone, could wave a magic wand she's like to see some form of help to help themselves.

"We'd like support or some sort of kitchen facility. What would go a long way would be a part time supervisor with the time to manage what we've started."

That fits with Hone Harawira's stated aims in the bill which is for schools to teach and manage their own environment to produce a practical result and for adults to be paid as overseers. Some, though, are questioning the cost of providing both lunch and dinner. Harawira's response is typically direct.

"South Canterbury Finance cost money. Sending troops to Afghanistan costs money. It's not about the money but about an investment in ourselves as a society,' he declares.

Two questions could still be asked. Will Weetbix and milk achieve self sufficiency? Would it be continuing the education of Kaikohe East primary kids, and vicariously their whanau, to suddenly receive a packaged breakfast?