This term’s ’unsung hero’ is our canteen manager, Kylie Dryden!!
How lucky are we at MRPS to be the only primary school in the area with a fully ‘manned’ school canteen, operating four days a week! Even luckier – that we have our Kylie as canteen manager!
Kylie Dryden took on the role of MRPS Canteen Manager in Term 2 of 2024 and since then she’s worked hard to realise her goal of making our canteen financially self-sufficient. Run through the P&C, our canteen is staffed by Kylie and a team of amazing volunteers who Kylie thanks for “always going the extra mile!”
The delicious canteen menu items snapped up by students reflect Kylies mantra of “making good food for kids and getting them to try new things to broaden their tastebuds.” Her focus on ‘eating healthy’ is evident in menu items like big salad rolls and yummy yoghurt crunchy cups, wholemeal rolls and sandwiches, rainbow salad bowls and some of Kylie’s favourite lunch specials – burrito bowls and the popular sushi.
Kylie’s passion for food and fresh ingredients has been part of her evolving food journey for over a decade. She’s been in hospitality since the age of 16. She’s cooked in various locations across Margaret River since 2013 and she became a qualified chef in 2017!! (More luck for us!) She’s worked with notable chefs along the way at a number of Gourmet Escapes: working in the Lurpak tent; with Tony Howell of Cape Lodge fame; and with Melbourne celebrity chef, Guy Grossi (whose stellar career promotes authentic Italian cuisine, informed by fresh produce.)
It’s her expertise as a chef that reveals itself in the FLAVOUR of her food. All dressings and marinades in the canteen are made from scratch – full of flavour. MRPS staff can vouch for her gastronomic creativity and the tastebud tingling flavour when Kylie caters for staff development days! She says she loves this aspect of her role as it gives her the chance to be “really cheffy”! (We love it too, Kylie!!)
If she’s not filling sheets of nori for sushi, punching out flavour or promoting fresh fruit as a snack, Kylie can be found rolling out cookie dough as a “special treat for the kids”. She loves baking and if you see the cling-wrapped cookie dough sausage firming up in the fridge – keep watch! There’s a treat coming…!
Kylie loves her role as canteen manager and, as she says,
“The kids make my day!”
I think it goes both ways, actually.
Four days a week you can find our unsung hero behind the counter patiently serving her little customers with a big smile, or wearing fluffy bunny ears and a cheeky grin as she holds a tray of exquisitely iced Easter cupcakes.
Fun, flavour and fun – that’s our Kylie!
Written, photos and posted by D. Veary
