Does anyone have advice on running a free breakfast club for students?

Reader question:

Has anyone here ever run a free breakfast club at school for your students? Our P&C are looking into the possibilities, just wanted to hear pro’s, con’s and any advice you all might have.

Here is some advice from our Facebook community on running a free breakfast club at school:

My kid’s school has a breakfast club. It’s just toast, one with marg and one with vegemite. The bread is donated by a local Coles store, through the second bite program. The marg and vegemite we get from a food bank.

We have free toast at our school. We serve it from the Tuckshop using year 6 student council members and one adult supervisor. Our bread is donated from the local bakery and we ask for donations of margarine/jam/vegemite/honey from parents. It’s very simple but very popular.

We have ‘Toast Ninjas’ two days a week. The bread is donated by our local bakers delight and the spreads by the P&C. The volunteers that run the show are some lovely ladies from the CWA. It’s a great way to have an intergenerational connection within our school community.

We have a breakfast club every morning free for all students. My understanding is that it was started through a charity (salvation army I think – it was before my time) but the school now funds it themselves. The bread is donated through a local supermarket, volunteers run it and school actually buy the butter jams etc

We have it once a week. The bread is donated and parents donate butter and spreads etc. We can also get cereal, milk and tinned fruit, baked beans and spaghetti through a food bank.

The last school I taught at had one. Staff even donated toiletries (deodorant; ladies products; toothpaste etc). They had bread donated from a local bakery and the school bought cereal and milk. It was a low socio economic area and some kids came with no lunch and we assumed they’d had no breakfast and who knows what dinner they were going home to. It’s a beautiful, meaningful gesture if you can do it. Shows the kids you care and love them and want them to be nourished with food and knowledge.

Our school has a breakfast club run by one of the teachers. It’s open from 8.30am-9am and anyone is welcome. We have toast, cereal and juice and all you can eat. They also use this for kids that have no lunch at school. On the toast you can have marg, vegemite or jam. All items are donated, milk included.

We have one that runs on Mon, Wed and Fri 8.00 – 8.30, anyone welcome.Toast with assorted spreads, fruit and juice, all donated by the local Woolies. Run by two P&C members.

We have a breakfast club. 5 morning’s a week, all welcome. We have asked local businesses to sponsor it as well. The bread is donated from 2 bakeries. We had cereal donated by kellogg’s. And we have fresh fruit donated my a local fruit and veg delivery service. We serve toast, cereal, juice, hot chocolates and sometimes even scrambled eggs when we get eggs donated. We also started doing the return and earn bottles to help fund it.

If you start one look to make the breakfast nutritious & providing energy, not sugar laden processed items. Sugar free/low cereal, fresh milk & a piece of fresh fruit. Let the kids be involved too, very important for social inclusion.

Our school has one two days a week. It used to be run by the Red Cross. Now items are sourced through foodbank as they are the official supplier in our area. We have local high school kids serve as part of their duke of Edinburgh. A teacher from our school runs it.

Our school does healthy breakfast 3 mornings a week and it is done through the Healthy Promotion Officer at Council who provides fruit and cereal and our teacher aides take turns to help out, sometimes they cook eggs and bake healthy breakfast muffins.

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Originally published 2 October, 2018