Emaa Shelford, Kiritahi Koroheke and Paul Marchioni are preparing the school lunches for the day. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
It's 8:30 in the morning and a crowd of students at Melville Primary School are at the breakfast table in the hall.
On this Monday it's scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast, with sausages left over from Friday's lunch.
With their best vocabulary, the kids describe to me how their food tastes. "Amazing" and "phenomenal" are the terms they felt appropriate.
Principal Bronwyn Haitana said breakfast makes a big difference, especially with attendance.
"We used to have a lot of people away on Mondays and now Monday is probably our biggest breakfast club and it's just a really fun and happy place to be in the mornings."
For the usual breakfast club, Melville Primary receives milk and Weet-Bix through Kickstart - a program co-funded by the Ministry of Social Development, Fonterra and Sanitarium.
Last year MSD chipped in nearly $1.3 million for the scheme. The funding for 2023-24 was $1.266 million.
Moko and Azaan say breakfast is a time they can spend with their friends. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
Melville Primary also has fruit break - which is provided by Te Whatu Ora's Fruit In Schools programme. Te Whatu Ora spent $9,188,644 excluding GST on the Fruit in Schools programme over the 2023/24 financial year.
Charitable organisation KidsCan also supplies cans like baked beans.
"We sort of mix up from that Fruit in Schools, Breakfast Club, and Kidscan to make up the breakfast. When we have bread leftover from sandwiches the week before, we use that leftover bread for breakfast. We don't have very much wastage at all because we're always making sure that we have better ways of making that stuff used in other ways."
Bronwyn Haitana considers her school lucky to be an internal model provider for the Ka Ora Ka Ako programme, which means her 250 pupils not only enjoy hot lunches cooked fresh at the school, but there's also a hot breakfast available at least once a week.
In the kitchen is chef Paul Marchioni and his team. Marchioni learnt his skills by helping on the marae and knows how to make a crowd favorite.
Emaa Shelford, Paul Marchioni and Kiritahi Koroheke are responsible for cooking for the 250 kids at Melville Primary School every day. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
He spends the school holidays refining recipes.
"I like to use our moko (grandchild) and whanau to have a try. It's funny as they're really honest, they'll just say, 'that was yuck'. They can provide some good intelligence. Unfortunately for quite a lot of our children, their parents actually can't afford to spend a lot of money on food. So they're cutting back on things like fresh vegetables. Some of the kids didn't even know what they were actually looking at in the lunch boxes that we provide. We have to hide those things that they're not used to eating. So blending and pureeing vegetables and putting it into the main meal, so they don't know it's there."
At midday, the children are having pears for their fruit break.
"It gives you more energy and you can be healthy," one student told me, and turned to ask his classmates what the fruit was.
Arnia and Teiaea are on fruit duty. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
Haitana said they use meals as an opportunity to educate the children about healthy food.
"When they first started, they weren't used to eating the sandwiches and they were pulling out all the tomatoes and lettuce, and that was actually quite expensive. So we talked to the kids around seasonal foods and talked to them about why we have lots of tomatoes around this time. Now when we don't have tomatoes, they'll ask if tomatoes are not in season, and I'll say, yeah, it's too expensive at the moment. I think that's been really valuable because, before they sort of saw food as something that they just eat but not actually understand."
Melville Primary School principal Bronwyn Haitana is in charge of handing out the lunches. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
Some children were eager to share what they know about the meals they are having.
"To keep our bodies healthy and to make our brains go 'wow'" and "to have energy to do mahi" are some of the answers.
The school lunch break is at 1:20pm.
While handing out the lunches, Haitana also checks the lunches that children brought from home and swaps out the unhealthy ones for a school-made lunch.
This day, she swapped out one student's jam biscuits for chicken rice.
Principal Bronwyn Haitana swaps a box of jam biscuits for chicken rice. Photo: Ke-Xin Li
Haitana said while the internal model is a lot of work, she wouldn't give it up for anything.
"I think I've also changed my attitude from food being just to feed the kids, more to it actually is a part of our school culture. We're an urban community. We do have a lot of people, who I would call displaced, such as people who not necessarily whakapapa back to the Hamilton area. We have a lot of Kainga Ora homes, which is great because it means they're out of emergency housing, but it just means that there are a lot of people who might not have whanau support around them. It's (food) a really great way to show our community that we care about them and their kids."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
