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Welcome to our new canteen manager, Sarah Goodwin!  🙂  Many of you will have seen her working away in the canteen already.  I interviewed her recently to find out a little about her background and her vision for the future direction of the school canteen.  What I discovered is that everything Sarah has done in her career to date seems to have led to this being the perfect job for her.

BACKGROUND:
Sarah is a professional nutritionist/dietician who hails from Woollongong, New South Wales.  She worked as a health provider for twelve years, during which time one of her projects was working with school children to improve nutrition.  She then owned and operated a Boost Juice business for five years before the family decided to hitch up a caravan and travel around Australia.  They did not make it any further than our lovely Margaret River, or in Sarah’s words “the most beautiful place in the world”, so the family enrolled their sons Noah and Oscar at Margaret River Primary and they put down roots.  Sarah’s husband, Kane, is now a senior ranger with National Parks while Sarah spent their first year in Margaret River consolidating her skills by completing a Commercial Cooking Course and obtaining her Work Place Assessment and Training Certificate.  So she was well placed to respond to the job advertisement for a canteen manager at our school.
Sarah sees her role as canteen manager as

a great opportunity to make a difference to the school my kids go to.  I’d like to help provide a food service that is both nutritious and delicious for the whole school community.

She would love to see everyone involved in this philosophy and she firmly believes that parents, teachers and students should all have a voice in promoting healthy food on the canteen menu.  The Canteen Committee is the forum where you can all have your say and Sarah is looking forward to working with the committee to introduce new items to the menu and maintain a focus on healthy and yummy products.

Sarah’s philosophy reinforces the focus we have at our school with our Kitchen Garden program, Crunch and Sip and brainfood. You can read more about the canteen’s healthy food menu options on this blog every couple of weeks.  We wish her all the best and look forward to enjoying some delicious dishes.

Written, photos and posted by D. Veary

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