The Kitchen & Garden Program at Wodonga West - Life with the Lamsays

Wodonga West Primary School became a Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden school in 2009. They have a huge veggie patch where they grow all sorts of vegetables, which are then picked and the kids use them their meals they make in the kitchen. They also have chickens to accompany the veggie garden, and classes spend 45 minutes per fortnight in there doing jobs like: composting, mulching, weeding, planting, and harvesting.

The program is run by the lovely Jacqui Hillas, who is the Kitchen and Garden Specialist, however volunteers are always welcome to help assist the children as they do their classes which run from Monday’s-Wednesday’s.

I’ve been volunteering there for the last three Tuesday mornings, and in my first session, I assisted in the kitchen and helped the kids make vegetarian samosas using zucchini and squash that they’d grown. The pastry had already been made, so we rolled out the balls of dough into discs to make the outer part of our samosas, and then spooned in the filling, sealed up the dough, and they were popped into the oven. We then got to taste some in the dining area and all the kids loved them and gave them a 10 out of 10 - success! 

The second session was a later start, and due to the weather being really hot, the kids learnt about photosynthesis and picked spinach leaves from the veggie garden to use the chlorophyll as paint to make a picture of a tree in their journals.

During my third session, the kids made zucchini slice, a summer salad, and my group made zucchini brownies. Everyone in my little group loved everything on the plate, and a couple of the kids gave me a hug at the end, which was really sweet.

Unfortunately I’m working for the next few Tuesdays, but I’m looking forward to getting back into it after that. This program had only just started running when my brother went to school there, and even at the age of 22, he still says that it was the best class! It a great way to get kids in the kitchen, especially if they don’t get the opportunity to at home.

If you’re interested in volunteering some of your time to help out, feel free to reach out and I can point you in the right direction!

 Until next time!