Taranaki woman Rochelle Steer runs Kai Kitchen, which provides school lunch for dozens of kids around her region.
She hopes to be out of a job soon as the government steps in with more measures to alleviate child poverty.
Rochelle Steer (Left); Phil Nixon, South Taranaki Mayor (Right) Photo: Supplied
Listen to Rochelle Steer on Afternoons
Kai Kitchen aims to lessen the blow of social inequality on kids with kai and kindness, Steer tells Jesse Mulligan.
She started the programme five years ago after giving some food to local families for their children’s lunches and later learning the food hadn’t reached the children.
Steer then approached the local school principal about supplying lunches directly to the school instead: “From that day five years ago until today, we started with 8 school lunches and now we make 86.”
Kai Kitchen is funded by grants and the Adopt a Lunch scheme, in which people can donate $5 per week.
Children are referred to the programme through their schools, social workers or the police and the food is administered to them through schools.
The lunch menu includes banana cake, luncheon meat-and-tomato ketchup sandwiches, as well as ham and cheese, fruits and yogurt.
Preparing lunches for 86 children at schools across south and central Taranaki is a challenge, Steer says, so three teams based in Hawera, Stratford and Patea look after the schools in those towns.
Following her lead, the government recently announced its Free and Healthy School Lunches programme, providing kids access to a nutritious lunch at school every day.
Up to 21,000 students in around 120 schools will benefit from this pilot by the beginning of 2021.
Steer thinks it's wonderful.
“[The programme] will start with low-decile schools, which is what they’ve already started doing. They’ll go into low-deciles. We actually don’t make lunches for low-decile schools, because they already have KidsCan and other things that they can use as support for those children. We make lunches for schools in decile four and above, high school and kindie -places where that kind of relief doesn’t go.”
Steer suspects the government initiative may stick to supplying low-decile schools but she'd be happy to be out of job if it is extended to other schools.
Empathy was what compelled Steer to launch Kai Kitchen. Parents in the area simply don't have the means to supply their kids with an adequate school lunch, she says.
“I have children of my own and a foster daughter and I’d hate to think that I was in a position where I couldn’t feed my children.”
Steer has not only committed to keeping local kids well-fed, she's also raised money to buy 90 pairs of pyjamas to keep them warm through winter.
A whole classroom received a pair of pyjamas after one boy in the class mentioned that he usually slept in his uniform.
The estimated cost was nearly $1,000 but an appeal on social media saw donations far exceed that.
“Within two-and-a-half hours we had $3,500. So they all got pyjamas - and mink blankets - and the little kids all got bed socks and they also get snack packs, as well, with chocolate and popcorn.”