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BestStart Gillies Ave's Sustainability Journey

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At BestStart Gillies Avenue, we are diving into our sustainability journey. We believe that it is our responsibility to alert children, teachers, families and the wider community to the many ways that support the earth.

We have begun with the easiest spot – the outdoors! We have been growing a secret garden with the children, teaching them how important flowers are for not only the bees, but all the tiny insects that live in our garden. The garden has thrived as our children have stepped up to the role of kaitiaki (guardians of the land, sea and sky) with gusto, enjoying every step and learning how to grow and protect our plants.

In amongst the flowers are our veges. We have been diligently watering them with worm tea from the worm farm and protecting them, so that they can grow healthy and large.

Recently, the children were able to harvest the fruits of their labour. They harvested a great bounty of silverbeet and kale just in time for lunch. They learnt the importance of not pulling the whole plant, so that the veges would grow more leaves for us to harvest in the future.

Inside, we have made changes to the way that we are ordering our food. We order local produce and support schemes such as ‘The Odd Bunch’. You may have seen The Odd Bunch at your local supermarket. This scheme offers great value for money and excellent quality produce. It is fresh seasonal produce that can sometimes look a little, well, odd! Funny shapes and weird lumps are all very normal in home growing, but not very popular in commercial growing. The children love all the funny shapes and enjoy the fruit and veges too!

Very soon we are going to be organising local walks to pick up litter, so that our community is a more beautiful, clean and great space for everyone.