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"It is with pleasure I nominate Helen Grant for the 2010
VSCA Canteen of the Year Award.
Helen's been the Canteen Manager since January 2006, and
over the past five years Helen has instigated a huge range
of changes to the canteen.
Helen implemented the 'Go for your life' healthy eating options
into the menu, and educated our staff, students and families
on the importance of nutrition and healthy eating through
visiting classes, newsletter articles and promoting special
order days to encourage student involvement.
Helen started as Canteen Manager when the canteen was a 6
x 6m brick room with no windows, a front and back door and
a roller door servery. Due to the BER program, we now have
a brand new 'state of the art' commercial kitchen, complete
with coolroom, combi oven, commercial dishwasher, refrigerated
sandwich preparation bench, two mobile food preparation benches
and a separate office space. To encourage College ownership,
Helen ran a competition to name the Canteen, with the winner
receiving lunch for themselves and five friends. The winning
name was "The Tuckerbox".
The menu reflects the Green - Go foods, Amber - Caution foods
and Red - Stop foods of the 'Go for your life' policy and
changes with the College terms to reflect the seasons and
produce available. Helen cooks a large range of menu items
in house and is always cooking new dishes for the students
to try.
Helen is regularly asked to cater for staff and College Council
functions, be it a simple morning tea for visitors, staff
lunches on training days, special foods for Open Days, Showcase
Evenings and the annual formal College Council end of year
dinner.
Helen researched and introduced the 'Slicker Sticker' system
to our Canteen to help parents when ordering student lunches.
The parents buy sticker sheets of Canteen money from the College
Office. Once the lunch order is written on a paper bag, you
stick on the required amount of stickers as payment. Students
from Prep to Year 6 are encouraged to order through the class
'tub' system. This is to alleviate the start of lunch rush
at the Canteen and avoids students missing out on lunch.
Helen works closely with the staff in the College to make
available special order days for different events throughout
the year. She regularly donates funds from these days to the
current College Community Service Project. Funds over the
years have gone towards student materials in Nepal, Mozambique
and Indonesia.
Helen makes available the kitchen for preparing goods such
as cakes and biscuits for sale at our annual fundraiser, 'Deutschfest'
(German Fair). The commercial oven is also very useful for
our Food Technology students when cooking their celebration
cakes. She has an inclusive approach to the use of the Canteen
facilities across the College.
Helen manages the Canteen utilising a team of parent volunteers
and student helpers. She always has a cheery smile for the
students and is keen to feed them nutritious, healthy food
that is also enticing to their palate.
I praise Helen in all her efforts for our students and highly
recommend her for this award."
- Andrew Leske, Principal
Canteen Supporting College Community Service
"Helen Grant, our Canteen manager, has been a strong supporter
of many programs which run throughout our College. She is
keen to integrate the Canteen into as many areas of College
life as possible. Our College has supported a variety of service
organisations and charities throughout the years and this
is an area that Helen has always been enthusiastic to be involved
in.
A labelled tin is always present on the canteen servery inviting
students to donate loose change to the focus for the term.
The money collected has been a substantial amount over the
years. Organisations and appeals such as Australian Lutheran
World Service, Operation Christmas Child, Royal Flying Doctor
Service, and Victorian Bushfire Appeal have benefited from
this money tin. By doing this, Helen is not only collecting
money, but she is also encouraging students to be aware that
there are others who need our help.
For the last three years, our College has held an Awareness
Week where the focus has been on a different country each
year. Our students and College community have been involved
in a variety of activities throughout this particular week.
The focus countries have been Nepal, Mozambique and Indonesia.
Each year when we have held our Awareness Week, one
of the key features has been exposing students and staff to
the food of the focus country. The Canteen has been a focal
part of these weeks with Helen organising student food specials
throughout the week. She has worked with the staff organisers
to plan menus, prepare the food and advertise these special
food days. She has carefully planned menus being cautious
to allow for the conservative tastes of some children while
giving opportunities to explore new tastes.
During our Awareness Weeks, Helen decorated the Canteen
area by displaying photographs of the focus country. Brightly
coloured signs, menus and messages have been on show to encourage
students to be involved.
Helen has also organised menus and prepared special staff
lunches during our Awareness Weeks where staff have
been treated to Nepal, Mozambique or Indonesia cuisine. She
has been keen to make this a special time for staff, concentrating
on detail and realising this is also helping to build good
relationships with staff.
On many of these special College food days, Helen has been
eager to donate part proceeds to the organisations the College
is supporting. Many of these groups have benefited from the
generosity of our Canteen manager.
Helen makes a valuable contribution to life at Trinity Lutheran
College through 'The Tuckerbox'!"
Canteen Supporting Classroom Activities
"Helen has been involved in the promotion of healthy eating
by taking part in classroom lessons. During our Year 2 health
unit on 'Healthy Living', Helen was invited as a guest speaker
to our class.
She brought with her six large platters of food samples which
could be good choices for school lunches and snacks. The children
were put into groups and then enjoyed sampling the variety
of deliciously prepared snacks. Students were encouraged to
have a go at new foods or to try foods they thought they did
not like.
Helen talked about the foods and explained what they were
and how they were good for our bodies. She also talked about
red, green and amber food groups and how we need to think
about what we eat.
The students thoroughly enjoyed this lesson and many positive
comments were made about the healthy snacks. Later they completed
a work sheet where they were able to reflect on what their
Canteen manager had taught them."
- Year 2 Teacher
Involvement in College Life
"The new canteen was put to the test at the Deutschfest.
The German Bake House baked 1700 biscuits, the coffee shop
8 syrup cakes, 8 German apple cakes, 6 dozen hedgehogs and
on the day the Combi oven cooked hundreds of potatoes in their
jackets, the commercial dishwasher never stopped. What a huge
asset to our school."
- TLC newsletter article
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