News

Moonah PS' star volunteer!

Ruth Howard, Kitchen Specialist at Moonah Primary School in Tasmania, has made special mention of the school's star volunteer, Grandad Chris Downey ...

‘Chris Downey is our local school treasure and we can't help but want to share him with the greater community, the whole of the Kitchen Garden Program across Australia. To be honest we are blessed with several extraordinary volunteers but to give you some background, Chris is grandparent to 32 children, to six of whom he is surrogate grandparent. Chris is the main contact person for five of this particular brood, who all currently attend Moonah PS. 

In addition to his vigilant grandparenting, Chris is guardian to grandson Hayden who participates in the Kitchen Garden Program. It is testimony to Chris's constant care that Hayden recently became the first student in the whole school to achieve 60 ‘You Can Do It!' awards, remarkable when contrasted with Hayden's previous years of significant learning blocks.

One of two volunteers who attended Kitchen Garden Program Staff Training earlier in the year, Chris has been involved in the garden from the beginning, as part of the 50-strong working bee who built the first beds on a weekend. Chris has supported Hayden to assist with weekend stalls, selling kitchen produce as a fundraiser, and ferrying him to and fro to these events. In fact Chris has driven his own car to Port Huon (a 120 km round trip) on several occasions to collect mushroom compost from a local supplier for our garden. Recently Chris has worked tirelessly on the chookshed enclosure alongside Hayden and others.

Although only two of his grandchildren attend kitchen classes, Chris still volunteers in no less than four of our five cooking classes a week, taking natural pleasure in thoroughly cleaning the entire kitchen long after each class is complete. Not only mean with a pot scrubber, Chris fixes the plumbing, regularly checking the loose taps. Chris has recently replicated and tagged all our locker keys, hunting down a specific style of key and machine to do this task, ensuring volunteer belongings and the class knives are safe and in order.

Concurrently with his Kitchen Garden Program volunteering, Chris is an active member of the School Association and the Fundraising Group (sausage sizzles, discos etc.). Perennially available, he is always ready with a laugh: "if laughing makes you live longer I'll live forever!" he says. Attending our Launching into Learning Parties, Whole School End of Year Picnics and all Sports Carnivals, Chris is Santa for the Kinder Party and certainly fits the suit! In addition, Chris attends each and every fortnightly school assembly.

When admired for his tireless whole-school commitment, Chris just says, "I do it for the grandkids".'

Congratulations Chris and the Moonah PS community on your fantastic kitchen garden team - we're very proud to have you in the Kitchen Garden Program family.

Chris has just been named Community Service Grandparent of the Year in the national Grandparent of the Year Awards! Read more.