The Marketing Department, along with Captain Capsicum and the School Sport Foundation made a special visit to Rossmore Public School on Friday 21 May as part of the ‘promoting the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables’ grants category.

The funding will allow Rossmore Public School to run their school’s fitness and healthy lifestyle program – Rossmore Munch More. The program is nutrition based, and helps create lifelong healthy habits for students, with the development of a recipe book containing recipes prepared by the students plus other recipes collected from parents.

Bazza Banana was lucky enough to visit Kyeemagh Infants School on Friday 23 April, along with the Marketing Department and the School Sport Foundation, as part of the ‘promoting the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables’ grants category.

The funding will support the Fresh Fabulous Food program being run at the school. The program is nutrition based, where the students will plant, grow and harvest Kyeemagh’s fruit and vegetable gardens with the opportunity to follow and create recipes.

The Marketing Department, along with Oscar Orange and the School Sport Foundation visited Lapstone Public School on Tuesday 30 March as part of the ‘promoting the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables’ grants category.

The funding will assist Lapstone Public School to run their Kitchen Garden Co-operative program.

Fiona Sharpe presented the school with a certificate and Sydney Markets Limited donated some potatoes for the school to prepare a special potato bake for the students.

Fresh for Kids partnered with the Premiers Sporting Challenge this year to promote the 2009 Join Forces and Win Canteen Campaign.

The campaign, which rewards students for buying fresh fruit and vegetables at their participating school canteen, has encouraged almost 1.5 million children to eat more fresh produce since 2000. Last year, almost twice as many country schools as city schools took part in the challenge. This year NSW Swifts player Susan Pratley and former Olympic swimmer Craig Stevens joined the campaign as Ambassadors to help promote healthy eating and an active lifestyle amongst school aged children.

Nine schools across Sydney and Wollongong had the opportunity to meet the Ambassadors and the F&V Gang. Below is a list of schools that took part in the visits this year –

• Loftus Public School
• Balgownie Public School
• Rowland Hassall School
• Blacktown South Public School
• Artarmon Public School
• Cromer Public School
• Oakhill Drive Public School
• Homebush Public School
• Lurnea Public School

The F&V Gang were excited to be part of the visits where they got to hand out fresh fruit and wristbands to students and help out in the school canteen.

For more information on the Canteen Campaign please click here.

Some children get their lunch and snacks from the school canteen every day of their school lives. For others, buying something from the canteen is a rare treat. Either way, canteens play an important role in the school community.

Friday 19 June was the inaugural Healthy Kids School Canteen Day, a day set aside to acknowledge the vital role that canteens play within the school community and to thank the volunteers and staff who run them.

Megabite Apple and Summa Strawberry attended Holy Cross Primary School, Glenwood, in Sydney's West, to help the students celebrate. The Gang members entertained the students while they enjoyed a healthy breakfast of fresh fruit which was donated by Sydney Markets.