Wadhurst classes are supporting these disadvantaged students through their work with Eat Up.
Thousands of Victorian students come to school hungry each day.
Eat Up is an Australian charitable organisation that, with the help of volunteers, make and deliver thousands of lunches a month to schools in metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria. According to Eat Up, one in eight Victorian children arrive at school either without any breakfast or provision for lunch. Eat Up provides high-need schools with sandwiches and other food staples to distribute to these students.
One Wadhurst class per week comes to School early, and makes up to 500 cheese or vegemite sandwiches. They wrap the sandwiches, which are then placed in freezers in schools across the State, ready for their time of need.
“It is really important that we help these students,” says Year 7 student Anthony Tashevski-Beckwith. “You need food to concentrate so, without food, it can be hard to learn and this might impact on your life later on.”
Eat Up currently supports more than 140 schools across Victoria. With 500 schools having been identified as high need, they are continuing to try build the volunteer base.
“We are very grateful to Melbourne Grammar for the support they are giving the programme,” says Eat Up founder Lyndon Galea. “The initiative started when I read a story in my local (Shepparton) paper which said children in two of my local schools were going hungry. I was surprised that students living in our area could be in such a situation, so I set out to do something about it.”
Some Senior School House groups are following suit and are also providing sandwich making support for Eat Up.
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