Tahunanui School
Tahunanui School students went wild and free as they take up the Spring Challenge.
Tahunanui’s Health Promoting Schools coordinator Jane Tambisari lead a tribe of brave hunters on an expedition to look for free, wild-growing food like watercress, puha and eels in the creek off Blackwood Street.
“I know a couple of families go down there looking for eels,” she said.
“As the weather gets warmer, more watercress and puha will come out and you can always go looking for mussels.
“It tastes better too when you’ve got it by yourself.”
Ms Tambisari said Tahunanui School had taken up the challenge because it complemented the work already done at the school.
“Good nutrition and exercise have everything to do with education. Education isn’t just maths and English, It’s about developing children as whole. We aim to help children develop life-long healthy habits,” she said.
“The Spring Challenge supports our ethos that you need healthy food and lots of exercise to create a holistic lifestyle.
“I especially like how it engages the whanau and gives them ideas and recipes.
“Parents like the way it challenges families. They think this is something we can do together.
“Families are always looking for quality ideas of things they can do. This gives them plenty of ideas that don’t cost a lot of money – like growing sweet corn. That’s something fun the whole family can do together.”
NPA programme director Helen Steenbergen said the Spring Challenge was about tapping into what’s fresh and local.
“We are challenging the kids across the top of the south to turn off their play stations, and to get out and try fresh foods and get into action,” Mrs Steenbergen said.
“It tastes way better and is heaps more fun than blobbing on the couch.
“And the challenges are designed to get the most out of what we have locally so that doing the right thing won’t cost a lot of money.”
To campaign will engage 5000 families across the top of south in the challenge with the distribution of groovy green bags for parents, green shoelaces and corn seeds for the kids and touch footballs for the 26 primary schools involved (including 12 schools in Marlborough).
