You might remember that we did a story about Breakfast Club in our October newsletter. Since then they have been very busy and one of their events was a Christmas party for 200 families with 1,000 children. They also supplied an additional twenty families with both groceries and presents. Auckland Shoebox Christmas donated 1,260 presents that enabled Breakfast Club to also support:
- South Auckland Christian Food Bank,
- Te Atatu Peninsula Children, and
- Rotorua charities.
This year Breakfast Club added ‘Cinnamon Donuts’, an extra candy floss machine and an extra bouncy castle.
TV One turned up at this event and ran a three minute clip at the end of their news that night which you can watch here: Breakfast Club Christmas Party.
Breakfast Club is also organising fun runs, which started in 2018, and for 2020 have the following in hand:
- Bay to Bay (Mission Bay to St Heliers Bay) 14 February,
- King/Queen of Maungakiekie 26 June, and
- Pakuranga Yacht Club to St Kentigern College 28 August.
The schools that are participating are:
- Glen Innes,
- Glen Taylor,
- Te Kohanga (on the way to Port Waikato), and
- St Kentigern College.
It is hoped that the NZ Police will again run with the children.
Sponsors are in place for these events who are:
- Rotary Auckland East,
- Sharine Burns Real Estate,
- DTR,
- Polymers NZ Ltd, and
- Dynasty Sport.
The Breakfast Club has identified an unmet need at local schools. The principals at Glen Innes and Glen Taylor Schools (Jono and Chris) have identified that all of the low decile schools in the Tamaki area have a major problem with new entrants turning up to school with a learning age of between two and three years of age. Conversely, at the nearby high decile school in Stonefields, children arrive at Year One with a learning age of between six and seven years.
To ‘attempt’ to fix this problem BC are
- working with Parenting Inc (running Pio Parenting Seminars for families),
- working with Scholastic (acquiring new books),
- revamping the New Entrants classrooms so they are ‘user-friendly’,
- creating a ‘Think Tank’ of qualified teachers in the industry,
- speaking with the Children’s Commissioner and Nikki Kay (National Education Spokesperson), and
- going out to the marketplace to seek funding.
Breakfast Club believe that this is a three year project.
So far:
- Scholastic Books have supplied, free of charge, 300 books to Glen Innes School. BCwill be seeking an additional 300 books for Glen Taylor School,
- Barfoot & Thompson Meadowbank paid for the upgrade of the New Entrants classroom at Glen Innes School,
- Blackmores NZ Limited had their staff take a day off work and re-painted all of the Glen Innes School junior classrooms,
- Jacobsen Holdings supplied 150 metres of carpet squares and laid them in the Glen Innes School Library.
- Health Pak Limited has through their contacts supplied artwork for the library walls,
- Ray White Real Estate in Howick has offered to contribute towards Parenting Seminars,
- Fletcher Living are supplying 100 ‘backpacks’ filled with appropriate products for all new entrants at all of their schools,
- Rotary Auckland East are assisting in seeking funding for the project – enabling us to then involve Glen Taylor School, and
- Close supporters of Breakfast Club have donated $2,000 and this will complete the Parenting Inc Seminars fees.
The third and final Parenting Seminar will include a hangi for the families. BC has been offered two pigs (from supporters in Whakatane), chicken (Kiwi Harvest) and vegetables (New World Eastridge) with the Glen Innes Cook Island Community using Breakfast Club’s Kai Cooker. BC would love you all to come (put the 24 September 2020 in your diaries).