School Spotlight: Echuca College

Echuca College has 800 students and their story involved the community banding together to support students with lunches.

While Echuca College only joined the School Breakfast Clubs program in Term 2, they were already running a successful Breakfast Club and Lunch program, so when remote learning came into effect, they adjusted to ensure they continued to support their students.

Dorinda, who looks after students well-being at Echuca College, said that many of the schools in the area came together under the co-ordination of a local teacher, and set up a Foodbank of their own that ran out of one of the local pubs.

Staff at the Hotel dedicated their time to making lunches for students in the area who would otherwise normally receive lunch at school. Echuca College contributed honey, vegemite, fruit cups and mini milks from the School Breakfast Clubs program to go alongside the sandwiches provided to local students.

Every Friday Dorinda would let the coordinator of the initiative know how many students needed lunch the following week, and by Monday and Wednesday they would have them packed into bags, ready to go out. The lunches were then delivered to students’ homes weekly on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Dorinda noted that “once the community worked out what was going on, they started getting donations to support the local initiative”. There were other small businesses including bakeries, the local IGA supermarket and cafés in the area that also contributed to the effort.

This is an excellent example of how communities came together during this time, and it certainly is lovely to hear how supportive the Echuca Moama community were towards students and families during remote learning.