A Hawke's Bay couple have supplied more than 60,000 litres of milk to schools in the region to help feed over 1,200 children breakfast every week.
Anchor milk distributers Sue and Leonard Kay supply 28 schools with Fonterra funded milk each week through their business Fresh Milk Hawke's Bay.
The Kay's support Fonterra with the logistics in running the KickStart Breakfast programme, a partnership between Fonterra and Sanitarium which provides milk and Weet-Bix to children in decile one to four schools across New Zealand.
Initially they supplied just two schools however it wasn't long before news of the benefits of the breakfast programme spread throughout the region and more schools came on board.
"We never realised in the beginning that it would get to be so big," says Leonard. "But there are a lot of kids going to school every day without breakfast and we wanted to be able to help. With each new term we are adding more and more schools so there is definitely a need out there," says Mr Kay.
The territory they cover is immense, spreading from Tutira in Northern Hawke's Bay to Porangahau in the South. This has meant that due to the number of schools involved and the distance between them the Kay's recently had to change the way they supply milk to their schools.
"Now most of the schools will come and pick up their milk from either our Hastings or Napier depots. The schools that are way out in the sticks prefer to get one big delivery of UHT milk once a term because that works best for them."
Fonterra and Sanitarium provide the products that make up the KickStart Breakfast. School communities manage the programme themselves and provide the children with crockery and cutlery, a space in which to eat and adult volunteers to supervise them.
The community partnership model is an effective one, as by focusing on the critical aspect of food, rather than logistics, KickStart Breakfast is able to provide breakfast to more schools across the country. Schools run the programme for just two days every week as the intention is to encourage good eating patterns that can be replicated at home.
Being involved as a key provider in this process is something Mr Kay would have never imagined while working as an IT manager for a leading bank in Wellington nine years ago.
Having been brought up in the Hawke's Bay he always wanted to return and when he saw the opportunity to run his own business he leapt at it.
Now his Anchor milk distribution business employs seven staff, runs three trucks and shifts 800 to 1000 crates of milk throughout the region every day.
Being this busy will not stop the couple from taking more schools on if the need arises.
"I had a principal come up to me on the street one day and he said to me that the programme was a God send because the children were now engaged in learning and could actually be taught. We will continue to be a part of KickStart Breakfast and we are quite excited to be able to put something back into the community."
KickStart Breakfast club
is a free breakfast-in-schools programme for decile one to four New Zealand schools. To be eligible to join schools need to meet all the requirements and fill in the application online. Only the principal, a teacher or administration staff at the school is eligible to apply for membership.
KickStart Breakfast club helps more children achieve their best by getting a kick-start to their day. Fuelled by milk and grains, KickStart kids experience the power of a nutritious breakfast, providing both strength and energy for maximum learning at school. KickStart Breakfast club is the only school breakfast programme of its kind in New Zealand. We work together with school communities to provide healthy breakfasts. Fonterra provides the Anchor milk, Sanitarium the Weet-Bix, and the school is responsible for delivering the programme.
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