On Monday 28 October, Mr Tortora and I drove our year 11 Food Studies students to Collingwood to volunteer at the FareShare Schools Kitchen.
Over the morning, we:
- Assembled 747 beef curry and rice meals
- Prepared 90kg mushrooms
- Prepared & trayed up 120 whole chickens for roasting
- Opened cartons of dinted tinned tomatoes for a sauce.
- Opened and trayed up tortellini for 800 meals
- Cleaned and reset the commercial kitchen
In our feedback from FareShare, we have received this message,
Please thank the students on our behalf and on behalf of the many people who have benefited from their generosity. We hope that their experience in the School’s Kitchen has inspired them and reinforced the idea that anyone and everyone can help others who are less fortunate.
Students completed pre & post shift workbooks as part of these experience. Here are some of their reflections. When asked to write 3 stories or facts that surprised you the most: students reflected:
‘They make use of so little to feed so many people, they are volunteers and are very careful when they are preparing the food, taking every precaution.’
‘The experience was more fun than I expected. It was really nice watching so many volunteers come in and cook delicious food for those that needed it. The quality of the ingredients was better than I thought they would be, all of them were brand new and looked like ordinary, clean, healthy ingredients.’
‘Something that surprised me the most was that we made hundreds, maybe even thousands of meals today from our class, which proves how much FareShare make in a whole day for so many people.’
‘My experience was much better than I expected. I thought it was going to be quite boring and exhausting, but it was quite fun, and I learnt a lot.’
‘The machines and processes they use to clean the kitchen. When there was liquid on the floor, a special pull-around machine was used to clean it all up, which I thought was clever.’
‘At Fare Share, they not only make and prepare meals for humans to eat, but they also prepare meals for people’s pets, which I had no idea before I went there. This made me feel really happy, because pets are an important part of people’s families.’
‘The third thing that surprised me was how many steps there are to clean the work benches to make sure all the germs are off and that it is safe to prepare other meals off.’
‘How many volunteers come each day or week to help out at FareShare. There are heaps of people helping out in any way possible, which proved to me that when people work together, they can have a big impact of other peoples lives.’
After our busy morning, we continued on to Brunswick to the iconic A1 Lebanese Bakery where the team had the chance to sit back, relax and enjoy some delicious foods. This is also part of our course, where in Unit 1, we studied the impact of migration on our local food landscape.
Eileen Mackenzie
VCE Food Studies Teacher
