Kids & Fruit

.... DELIVERING DELICIOUSLY HEALTHY SENSATIONS TO PRIMARY SCHOOLS

Over the past three years Kids & Fruit, a non profit charitable organisation works with regional and metropolitan primary schools throughout Victoria by providing a practical, hassle-free and affordable solution to educating and influencing school children to prefer fruit and other healthy alternatives over junk food.
 
Currently with 16,500 participants from 165 primary schools, Kids & Fruit continues to achieve it's by allowing children to experience with their peers the vast array of fruits (and now vegetables) available to them, including apples, pears, mandarins, grapes, cherries, kiwi fruit, bananas...............just to name a few.
 
In April 2008, Kids & Fruit conducted a survey to determine the effectiveness of the program. 95% of parents interviewed stated that their increasing support for the program was because they are noticing that simple intervention and providing the same fruit to their child's peer group or class has changed their child's perception of healthy food and have increased their consumption of fruit and vegetables as a snack rather than something high in saturated fats and unnatural sugars.  
 
The Kids & Fruit program operates by delivering fruit at a location and time requested by a primary school. Kids & Fruit contracts drivers to delivery anywhere around Victoria. For example, Kids & Fruit's reach includes outer eastern, western and southern suburbs of Melbourne and to Bendigo, Ballarat and Shepparton,. The fruit which is delivered is packed into bags in configurations of 20. The bags are then packed in cardboard cartons. The costs of the fruit is heavily subsidised by fruit growers from the Goulburn Valley, Fruit Growers Victoria, SPC Ardmona and IK Caldwell.
 
In addition, at the beginning of 2007 Kids & Fruit successfully acquired $100,000 worth of funding from the Pratt Foundation, a philanthropic division of Visy Board. The Pratt Foundation's contribution has enabled all primary schools within the outer metropolitan suburb of Melbourne, Broadmeadows, to participate on the program until 2010.
 
The Kids & Fruit program aims to complement the philosophies of the Victorian state government's health focused initiatives, Kids-Go for your life and the Free Fruit Friday initiative. It also works in line with the objectives of Horticultural Australia Limited's (HAL) 'Go for 2 & 5' campaign. 
 
Kids & Fruit has continued to reach out and convey the importance of healthy eating by engaging with several sporting associations, including Auskicks (Vic) and Football Federation (Vic).
 
Kids & Fruit aims to follow through with it's success and launch into New South Wales and Queensland during 2009 and 2010.
 
 
KIDS & FRUIT-  SEEKING SUPPORT FROM FRUIT AND VEGETABLE GROWERS

 
Supporting Kids & Fruit is a unique opportunity to become a player of a program that has already been proven to be successful and is receiving widespread support throughout rural and metropolitan Victoria.
 
If you are a fruit or vegetable supplier that is looking at ways to contribute to the community (even assisting with combating Australia's obesity epidemic) and promote your produce Kids & Fruit would love to hear from you.
 
If interested, please contact Sarah at Kids & Fruit on (03) 5831 7291 or email sarah@kidsandfruit.org.au for a discussion on how you can become involved.