These five Maitland Public School students are passionate about local food and their farmers.
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This week they will join the Slow Food Earth Market in The Levee for a special role that is part of the Baker Young Leaders award – a new initiative that acknowledges students who have leadership qualities and volunteer in the city.
Year 6 students Ava Budden, William Jessup and Sienna Davidson, and year 5 students Lucy Adams and Lucy Jansen will work with the farmers and help pack the pre-ordered fresh food boxes at each market for the next three months.
They will also create information sheets at school on food waste and the food history of Maitland, which will be put into each box.
Slow Food Hunter Valley leader, and Maitland Citizen of the Year, Amorelle Dempster said the move would give the students a range of life skills.
“The students will be volunteering at each market for an hour and in that time they will collect the food from the farmers – they will interact with the farmer and have a list. They will check off the produce as well so there is a little bit of record keeping and logistics involved as well,” Ms Dempster said.
“They will put signs on the produce that they make at school so the customers know what variety it is – and this will also allow them to learn about different biodiversity.
“They will be sorting and wrapping the produce so they will learn about the storage of food and they will be adding the recipes in the box.”
Maitland Public School assistant principal Alison Coombs came up with the award program and asked Maitland mayor Loretta Baker for her support.
Cr Baker engaged Maitland library, the art gallery and the council media and marketing team to create more leadership opportunities for the five students.
In any school there are students who always top in sport and in academics and then there are those that have a lot of potential and ability, but not all of these can be the school captain or lead in any way, so this is an opportunity for students to achieve on another level,
- Cr Baker said.
“It requires a lot of parental support because some of the things will be on weekends.”
Ms Coombs said the students were looking forward to the experience.
“The kids are doing leadership-style things to achieve the award and there will be things for them to do at school, things in the community and other things that they will do personally,” she said.
“When we asked the kids why they wanted to do this a lot of them talked about being challenged and giving back to the community and being a leader.”
Belinda-Jane Davis
Passionate about community news
Passionate about community news
