Stephanie Alexander has long been an advocate for education surrounding nutritious growing, cooking and eating.
As one of Australia’s most recognised cooks, food educators and authors, she has always been motivated to raise awareness of the importance of nutritious eating. Creating her Kitchen Garden Program for schools across Australia is one of Stephanie’s greatest successes.
Kylie Kwong has been a long-time supporter of the Kitchen Garden Program in NSW, and this week, she’s joined Johanna Griggs in a Western Sydney primary school to help raise awareness.
The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program
Developed by the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, this program supports educators in early childhood services, primary and secondary schools in food education. It assists these educators to help teach children how to grow, harvest and prepare nutritious food.
The Kitchen Garden Program began in 2001, when it was piloted at Collingwood College. With over 20 years of success in bringing the joy of fresh eating and hands-on food learning, this program now has over 1000+ members across Australia.
The program relies on donations, community sponsorships and raising awareness so it can fulfil its promise for food education support.
Recently, Johanna Griggs paid a visit to one of the Kitchen Garden learning hubs in Western Sydney to hear about their story…
St Clair Public School and their vegie-filled pasta
Johanna Griggs was joined by Stephanie Alexander and Kylie Kwong during this week’s episode.
There is a learning hub currently being established at nearby Blackett Public School, which will hopefully become a community centre for food education. Bringing over the children and educators from Blackett Public, St Clair Public showed them how to put the program into action – and Joh, Kylie and Stephanie came along for the ride!
Watch Joh, Kylie and Stephanie as they immerse themselves in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program
With lots of children picking, chopping, slicing and dicing in the background, Joh got to hear all about Kylie Kwong’s food education story.
Kylie has worked for years in the area surrounding St Clairs Public, advocating for community engagement with food.
Growing up in an Asian household, there was little representation in her primary school of her own culture. As her friends and peers grew to love her mother’s Cantonese cooking, Kylie learned how important food was in bringing communities together and making young people feel proud about their culture.
Kylie explains that the Kitchen Garden Program, ” It empowers all the students to share and grow food from their cultures” and thar’s the main reason she’s such a big supporter of it.
We also heard from Caz about her journey. Caz is a Kitchen Garden Educator at St Clair’s Public, and has helped her students by teaching them to cook amazing recipes using ingredients in the school garden.
One of her recipes, a roasted carrot and sun-dried tomato pasta sauce, was made by the children during the episode. It was wholeheartedly enjoyed by everyone!
How to get involved in the Kitchen Garden Program
The Kitchen Garden Program offers support to educators in many ways, including (but not limited to):
- Printed educational resources
- Access to the Shared Table, an online resource library and community hub
- Webinars, email newsletters
- 1-2-1 support, 5 days a week
- Access to Trellis, an online assessment tool
To join the program, you must fill out an online form based on educational institution – early childhood, primary, secondary and local government.
A membership fee is required to join the Kitchen Garden Program, however, it can be funded on an as-needed basis.
There are currently over 1400 expressions of interest from communities in need, which is why raising awareness and donating to the cause is so close to our hearts!
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