You’re helping to feed hungry kids at school

Five days a week, you help keep the Foodbank School Breakfast 4 Health Program up and running, providing healthy, nutritious food to children who turn up to school hungry. Marisa, who runs the program at Emerton Public School, shares what her day can look like!

I’m Marisa, and I’m the Community Liaison Officer at Emerton Public School, and I help run the breakfast club.

It’s open to our students every morning – all 240 of them. And it’s great because many of these children don’t have access to breakfast at home – no milk, no cereal. So having Foodbank take that stress off the kids, and their parents too, is something we’re all grateful for.

Each morning, we serve things like Up & Go’s, spaghetti, baked beans, jam toast, Nutrigrain, Weet-Bix and cornflakes. Chocolate Up & Go’s are always a favourite.

On a typical day, around three students in every class will arrive at school hungry or without having eaten breakfast. One teacher has even seen kids eat paper because they were so hungry.”

We have kids with ongoing attendance issues, food issues, and empty lunchboxes, who are always grumpy, pale and not wanting to be at school. But through Breakfast Club, we’ve seen such a change. Just having breakfast turns their attitude around. And they certainly aren’t the only ones!

I wish you could come along and see the real-life impact of what you’re making possible in schools like ours. Thank you for providing breakfast for these kids, because no child should be hungry at school.