Stephanie Alexander visits Southern Support School

Last Wednesday we were delighted to welcome VIPs from the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation for a tour of our kitchen and garden facilities. Our guests were none other than Stephanie herself plus her Chief Executive Officer and her Projects Manager.

Stephanie was on a short visit to Tasmania for a number of meetings but was keen to fit in a visit to a school – I am told by Foundation staff that we were her first choice! Stephanie has recently been awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in this year’s Australia Day Honours. The award citation commended Stephanie for her ‘distinguished service to education through the design and establishment of schools-based learning programs promoting improved food and eating choices for children, and as an author’. She has also been chosen for a 2014 Australia Post Legends Award and her portrait can be seen on current 60 cent stamps.

Sherry and I spent a very enjoyable hour with Stephanie and her staff. We started with a cup of tea and biscuits in our SAKGP dining area. I decided to make some biscuits using a recipe from the ‘Stephanie Alexander Cook’s App’ that I had recently purchased for my I Pad and was quite thrilled when she ate one and then asked for another!!

While we sat and talked about how we run the program Stephanie and her colleagues took countless photos and Stephanie even made notes as we talked. They were certainly impressed with our work!

We then moved on to the garden and once again our guests were very impressed with all that we are doing. The garden is looking wonderful at the moment, full of fruit and vegetables and now has lots of decoration. An artist in Franklin, Jill Bruce, recently painted a sign for our garden and staff member Shaani and her husband have made lovely red watering can plant bed labels and also donated delightful wind catchers.

Stephanie and her staff continued to be impressed when our tour moved into the Garden Classroom. We demonstrated the Interactive Whiteboard Activity that students participate in prior to their kitchen and garden classes and gave them the opportunity to inspect our wall displays and learning resources. Once again many photos were taken and no doubt will be seen shortly on the SAKGP web-site.