Coburg Primary School Breakfast and Garden Program

Recently the Rotary Club of Coburg has been working with the teaching staff at Coburg Primary School to assist the school to develop the school’s Breakfast and Gardening Programme.

A number of students who attend the school arrive at school each morning without having breakfast and in some cases without a lunch.

Each morning the school canteen is staffed by some of the mums who prepare a breakfast for those disadvantaged students. The food is donated by local businesses and organisations like “Second Bite”. As a treat, each Friday morning, all students can have a toasty or cereal to eat from the canteen.

To date the Club has purchased for the Breakfast Programme, a 2 Door Refrigerator, Commercial Tunnel Toaster and Contact Grill.

The next item in the project is to examine the upgrading of the school canteen to make it more efficient and user friendly.

The other section of the project is the development of the Gardening Programme.

The aim of this programme is to teach the pupils how to grow and cultivate fruit and vegetables in the school garden. Also the students learn about the importance of insects in the garden and composting.

When the vegetables are ready to harvest the students pick or dig up the vegetables. They are then taught how to prepare and cook their produce into a mouth-watering meal, which they enjoy for lunch. With any surplus produce from the garden the pupils hold a stall each Wednesday and sell the excess to the parents. The money raised from selling the vegetables the students then decide how they will spend the money to further develop the garden.

With the aid of Strathmore Men’s Shed the Club has had two lockable timber storage boxes constructed and installed in the garden. In the boxes gardening tools can be stored and other ancillary equipment. Also when the lids are closed the boxes can be used as seats.

Currently Strathmore Men’s Shed is constructing a hexagonal propagation table so that the students have a better facility to propagate their seeds. The table is going to fit around a tree that is in a central part of the garden.

Ivon Lofts

Coburg Rotary

Reach For the Stars - Rotary Diamond Creek

For Tamara Dennler’s birthday on Saturday, 7 January the Swiss Rotary Exchange Student had the most unusual birthday ever: a day fill with surf, sand and warmth with the Palermo Family at Rosebud. Tamara hugely appreciated this unique experience. Little did she know it was soon built upon.

On January 11 new Host Mum, Pam Wood picked up Tamara from one of her girlfriend’s houses. Pam was under the impression the party was to celebrate Tamara’s birthday and thought it was lovely her girlfriends had organised a birthday party. When Pam picked her up that night she found out that it was her friend’s party, not Tamara’s.

During the drive home Tamara asked if she could have a “games afternoon ” with some of her friends at Pam’s house before school stated again Pam asked if this was for a late birthday gathering for her and she said she would love that! Although she had only asked if some girls could come over, Tamara shared it was a secret dream to have a birthday party in Australia - in summer!

Tamara in her very organised way asked what dates suited Pam. Tuesday, 24 January was most suitable for her, including two Youth Exchange students.

They started organising the “games night” days ahead of schedule for approximately 17 girls. Tamara had previously shared that it was her dream to have an Aussie birthday party that blended of both Swiss and Aussie traditions. Various birthday traditions were discussed along with all dietary requirements considered

One Swiss tradition was - “The Chocolate Game.” This involved taking turns rolling a die until someone got a six! Then you had to put on gloves, hat, and scarf, and then using a fork and knife try to unwrap the chocolate parcel, cut some then eat some. As soon as someone rolled a six, that person started the entire process again. Laughter and encouragement for others filled the room.

Another important tradition for Tamara’s birthday happens the day before. On January 6 the Swiss have a “Three Kings Celebration”. This commemorates the Three Kings who visited Baby Jesus in the Bible. The tradition is to bake a loaf of bread at home, hide a plastic “King” in the bread and whoever breaks the bread and finds the “King” becomes “King for the Day” and wears a crown. Pam and Tamara agreed to an adaptation. They used “bake at home” dinner rolls with a half almond hidden inside one. Pam suggested, as everyone who was coming was female, and it seemed strange to have a “King” and they spoke about a gender-neutral term that was inclusive. “Monarch” was decided and of course a tiara was the appropriate headwear.

The Australian tradition of "Pin the tail on the donkey” morphed into five different circles with the objective being to place a “dot closest to the star.” Instead of a tail, a black marker was used. “The Reach for the Stars" game was born. It was wonderful how the girls gave encouragement to guide their blindfolded friend to put their mark closest to the star.

The idea of fairy bread had Tamara squealing with excitement as she had this at her host sister’s birthday earlier in the year. She most definitely wanted to include this non-nutritious delight. A whole loaf of fairy-bread was eventually made and eaten by the guests.

Pass the parcel was omitted, as it is not environmentally friendly to waste so much paper and where do you find newspapers these days?

A new tradition was added: henna hand paintingexpertly provided by Rotarian Shreya Pandit.

Example of Reach for the Star https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kst12RjPu3tFl3f9Pl mpMW0eJr8XjcQm/view