When I was growing up, getting lunch from the school canteen was a weekly treat that was a welcome break from the polony*-and-sauce sandwiches that I regularly attempted to bury in the sandpit. We could buy half an icy pole for 10c and a small bag of chips for 30c. When your mother made an appearance as a lunchtime volunteer, it was like being a rockstar in the schoolyard.
When I reached high school, my tastes had evolved to a custom-ordered paté, egg and salad roll that no one else seemed to understand, but the volunteers were always happy to make it for me. And to my eyes, there never seemed to be a shortage of volunteers.
By the time I had my own children, it was a school requirement that each class provide volunteers once a term to work in the primary school canteen. It was a doable by painful request, but as the years slid by, the number of parents who weren’t working full-time dropped noticeably. When the well of volunteers dried up, the school looked to outsource to a professional and never looked back.
But not all schools have this option, and as such canteens are under threat like never before, at risk by a combination of increasing financial strain on both families and operations plus shortages of staff and volunteers. This is a situation that demands our immediate attention.
According to the Federation of Canteens in Schools (FOCIS) “Without immediate action and support, many school canteens will be forced to close, depriving children of an essential service that contributes to their health, social development, and academic success.”
Leanne Elliston is the FOCIS Chair and Senior Dietitian/Chief Executive Officer at Nutrition Australia ACT, and is passionate about working with children, parents, the education system and the community to encourage healthy eating habits.
Read the full article here: Saving our school canteens – SchoolNews – Australia (school-news.com.au)
