Soil and seedlings donated to Ngamatapouri School to help sustain students

Students were excited to receive seedlings and a truckload of soil at Ngamatapouri School.

The goods came courtesy of the team at Bark and Boulders Landscape Supplies Whanganui in response to letters they received from the children requesting a donation.

Ngamatapouri School principal Heather Dallas said it was beautiful top quality soil.

"It was really amazing. We're such a little school that our budget for things like that really is very dependent on donations," Dallas said.

"Fundraising when you've only got five or six families is quite hard."

However, the little school 76 kilometres north of Whanganui makes it work, especially with the help of locals like Jim Larsen.

Larsen donated timber to the school, which Dallas' husband James used to make garden beds for the students.

"We wanted to grow more edible vegetables, but up until now they've been getting attacked by possums and rabbits and other pests," Dallas said.

"We put in a little bit of soil that we had here too, but it just wasn't very good quality and nothing was growing."

The school received a phone call last week saying that not only would they receive a donation of soil, but it would be delivered too.

Dallas was blown away when the workers arrived with a packet of seedlings for every student with their names written on them.

They contained everything from silverbeet to carrots, beans, cabbage, capsicum, broccoli and more.

The school has a long term plan in place because they have become an Enviroschool, which is all about sustainability.

Dallas said that the students enjoy cooking, which has been a focus of theirs lately.

"They love food of course, being kids. We've been doing some cooking sessions using vegetables trying to make some healthy lunches at school once a week.

"We've had kids trying things that they wouldn't normally have at home and they've been absolutely loving it."

The menu has included dishes such as a tuna dip, carrot salad and cauliflower with a cheese sauce.

Ngamatapouri School students enjoyed a fun water day as their last day of school for 2018 and 2019 will present new challenges.

Together they will be looking at how they can manage pest control, recycle better and as Dallas says "big things will be happening".