September 2009
H3. Background
East End Health is a health charity which aims to help local school children to learn about and gain access to a healthy balanced diet and active lifestyle. The charity recently set up a Fruit and Vegetable Bag Scheme in three local schools: Wharrier Street Primary, Tyneview Primary and Welbeck Primary. The scheme was also set up in partnership with Food Chain North East; a local not for profit company. Food Chain North East works across the North East of England developing local food co-operatives.
Through this scheme East End Health hopes to be able to increase local children’s uptake of fruit and vegetables at home and to make accessing good quality, affordable fresh food easier for local families.
Action taken
The Fruit and Vegetable Bag Scheme enables parents to buy low cost, but high quality fruit, vegetables and free range eggs directly from their child’s school. The scheme runs on a weekly basis with parents sending their orders into the school via an envelope order form. The orders are then collated by the school and submitted to Food Chain North East for processing. Orders are delivered directly to the school later the same week, and are collected by the parents when they collect their child from school.
The scheme was piloted at Wharrier Street Primary school for a full half term earlier this year. It was advertised to both children and parents in a special assembly at the school. Members from both the East End Health Team and the Food Chain North East Team also attended the assembly. Pupils were given a flyer advertising the scheme and an order envelope wrapped around a carrot. This initiative was designed to draw attention to the scheme and offer a sample of the produce on offer.
East End Health also developed a series of recipe sheets and these were included in the fruit and vegetable bags.
What were the outcomes and benefits?
During the first week of the scheme at Wharrier Street Primary School, 63 families took part and 127 items were ordered. The scheme remained popular with both pupils and parents. Within the first half term a total of 617 items were ordered. Following the success of the initial scheme two further schools asked if they could get involved. The scheme has been a great way of getting the pupils excited about fruit and vegetables.
The Year 6 pupils at Wharrier Street Primary School have enjoyed being directly involved in the running of the scheme and have developed new skills; through working and collating orders and money.
Clare Marriott (Deputy Head Teacher) at Wharrier Street Primary School established a weekly Cookery Club for the pupils. She used the items in the fruit and vegetable bags as the basis for the sessions. Pupils have gained an understanding of healthy cooking through the club and the East End Health recipe sheets.
Sustainability
East End Health has developed good relationships with each of the schools involved in the scheme and also with Food Chain North East. The charity will continue to promote the scheme to both pupils and parents using a series of flyers, leaflets and posters. The East End Health team are also regular visitors to each of the schools and aim to promote the scheme alongside other projects operating within the schools. The Year 6 pupils at the schools are involved in organising the project which reduces staff costs. East End Health plan to expand the scheme and target other schools in the area.
Learning Experience
It was really important to run the scheme in one school at a time; so that the project could be carefully structured and organised. Successful advertising of the scheme has been the key to its success. In order to keep the number of orders at a consistently high level promotional material needs to be regularly targeted at schools and sent home to parents.
Leaflet
Download a leaflet which describes the scheme below
East End Health fruit and vegetable bag scheme
Click here to download (Adobe pdf doc 584KB)
Contact information
Kate Snowball
Project Development Worker
East End Health
Tel: 0191 276 0595
