Everyday Heroes - Alice & Betty

KickStart Breakfast Club volunteers Alice Donohue and Betty Cox start their days at North New Brighton School with pinnies on and arms ready for the hugs from the children who greet them. Twice-weekly, Alice arrives at the coastal Christchurch primary school at 7.30am, puts out the handmade breakfast club sign, the milk, boxes of Weet-Bix, bowls and cutlery, and makes everything ready and welcoming for the children who arrive from 8am. Betty is there in time to help supervise the eating and then does the washing-up with Alice.

North New Brighton, a decile-four school*, holds the club in their technology classroom as its hall was damaged in the February earthquake. There’s plenty of room, though, for the 17 students who regularly attend to eat amid the happy chatter of their mates, fuelling up for the day ahead.

‘Breakfast does seem to make them a lot more energetic. They’re all up and going afterwards’ Alice Donohue, North New Brighton School breakfast club co-ordinator.

Alice is the breakfast club’s coordinator and attended North New Brighton herself, as did her children and grandchildren. She and Betty were neighbours as youngsters and have stayed in touch over the years. Both women have deep connections with the local community and enjoy the company of the children. “Just don’t ask me to remember all their names,” laughs Alice. “When you’ve been doing this for a while it’s a bit hard keeping up with who is who.”

After cleaning up, Alice and Betty stay on to run a Reading with Granny” programme, aimed at helping children improve their reading skills. Both are warm, bubbly, funny women with big hearts and they love seeing the difference a good start makes to the children’s day.

Fonterra and Sanitarium provide only the products that make up the healthy KickStart Breakfast. It’s up to the individual school’s community to manage provisions, including bowls, spoons, a suitable location, food storage facilities and, of course, the adults to supervise the running of the breakfast club.

The community partnership model is an effective one. By focusing on the critical aspect of providing food rather than logistics, the programme is able to provide breakfast to more schools across the country.

*Every New Zealand school has a decile rating of between one and 10 from the Ministry of Education, reflecting the socioeconomic area it draws its students from. Decile one to four schools draw from low socioeconomic areas. A school’s decile is in no way linked to the quality of education it provides.