BIANCA GOES BACK TO KINDER
A special thanks and well done to Bianca Pante who recently visited a kindergarten in Werribee in her role as a friend of Rotary. Here is her uplifting story...
A few weeks ago Anthony told me that a lady named Louise from Thomas Chirnside kindergarten had made contact with him regarding some projects maybe Rotary would be interested in. Anthony asked me if I would like to do some cooking with the kinder children.
“Of course” I said, but was thinking to myself, "Isn’t their more useful projects we could be doing?".
On arrival I could hear the noise of the children from the car park and I felt a little nervous not knowing what to expect. I remember telling myself, “Thirty kinder kids! It should be easy making pikelets compared to my normal class of 22 teenage boys and girls”. Well it might not have been easy but far more enjoyable and rewarding than I expected.
As I entered the chaos of the classroom, I knew then why this lovely lady had contact Anthony. There are 28-30 children in a class. I would say at least half, if not more than half, have English as their second language. I could see a minimum of 5 special needs children and several more with speech issues, anxiety issues, separation issues and behaviour issues.
The most disturbing thing I saw was a father bringing his son late to kinder. He gave a look to Louise. No words were spoken, just a look of understanding. Louise knows that there isn’t any lunch box today because there isn’t any funds. Louise tells me that the kinder most days will supply two children with lunch because both families are unable to do so. She also went on to say that a lot of the time the teachers with give the children their lunches.
We sat on the mat and the chatty children were so interested and excited to see me. I gave them a little lesson on healthy eating and how we need the right fuel in our bodies to sustain the day. They were so attentive and involved in the conversation - like little sponges. The children went around sharing what they had for breakfast. In a few cases I had to pretend I knew what they had but I really had no idea and, when I did, it wasn’t really healthy at all.
We broke off into groups of four, taking it in turns coming into the kitchen to help me make pikelets with jam or banana and yoghurt. They just loved being involved and came back for seconds and thirds. Some enjoyed trying pikelets for the first time. They really where beautiful children.
As I was leaving the kinder I looked down and I had pikelet mix on Anthony’s Rotary T-shirt. I felt so proud to be a Friend of Rotary and loved every bit of that experience.