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Good Start Breakfast Club™
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What is it?
The Good Start Breakfast Club is a community program run by Australian Red Cross in partnership with Sanitarium where volunteers serve breakfast every day for school kids in areas of greatest need around Australia.
This vital service provides nutritional support in a comforting environment and works towards encouraging children to develop social and living skills. Through nutritional and social support, the Good Start Breakfast Club program can help young school students to achieve their full potential.
Who is it for?
The program targets primary school children. Good Start Breakfast Clubs are open for participation to all children in a school. This not only ensures everyone has the opportunity to receive a nutritious breakfast and to learn vital social and nutritional skills, but that the possible stigmas associated with participation are reduced. Geographic areas considered socially or economically disadvantaged are given particular focus.
Over the last 12 months in NSW, 400 volunteers served over 100,000 nutritious breakfasts to children who would have otherwise gone hungry.
Why is it important to provide a nutritious breakfast to our young children?
Many nutritionists consider breakfast to be the most important meal of the day. It assists children's physical, mental and emotional development. Children who miss breakfast are less able to concentrate, are more prone to fidgeting and find learning difficult by mid-morning. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that children who miss out on a healthy breakfast are more likely to suffer from obesity later in life.
Reports on the proportion of Australian children who miss breakfast vary from 5% to 30%. Rates of breakfast omission are believed to be higher in schools in disadvantaged areas. Children from lower socio-economic backgrounds are six times more likely to miss breakfast than students from higher socio-economic backgrounds.1
1 Does Your School Need to Provide Breakfast? Guidelines to Needs Assessment, Implementation and Evaluation. New South Wales Department of Education and Training, State Health Publication 9700011, December 1997
Where are Good Start Breakfast Clubs located?
Clubs currently operate in four regions around New South Wales - Western NSW, the Hunter Region, Greater Western Sydney and the Sydney Metropolitan area. Through the support of Sanitarium, the program is now expanding nationally. Programs are either currently operating or will soon commence in the Northern Territory, Victoria and Queensland.
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