KickStart Breakfast is one way Fonterra and Sanitarium are giving back to communities in which we operate and is part of our commitment to promoting health and nutrition through the goodness of dairy and cereal.

After a great response to a pilot in 30 decile one schools last year, Fonterra partnered with Sanitarium to offer the programme to all decile one to four schools across New Zealand in 2009. KickStart Breakfast provides free Anchor Mega Milk and Sanitarium Weet-Bix to participating breakfast clubs at schools up to twice a week.

Fonterra worked to develop the programme after identifying a strong need to provide children in low decile schools with a nutritious start to the day. KickStart Breakfast shows children how important a balanced breakfast is for learning and energy levels and encourages them to lead a healthy, active life.

KickStart Breakfast is based around a community partnership model - Fonterra and Sanitarium provide milk and cereal, and each school community takes responsibility for preparing and delivering this to students in need each week.

We've had some great feedback on the programme with teachers and principals noting that children who are nourished and well-fed perform better throughout the school day.

Through educating children about the difference eating breakfast makes to concentration and energy levels, we hope to encourage good breakfast habits that are replicated at home - rather than take over parental responsibility. For this reason we are not looking to run programmes every day.

With over 100,000 New Zealand households finding it difficult to manage budgets and family meals, partnering with us to deliver a 'KickStart' to a child's day means, together, we are able reach out and make a difference where it is needed most.

Close to 300 schools have joined the programme and we are looking at ways we can involve more schools. We are currently assessing when to re-open applications, but in the meantime, the criteria to join are:

• The school is a Decile 1 - 4 school
• The school is not partaking in any other breakfast programme initiatives with other charities
• The school has an existing breakfast programme or a plan in place to commence a breakfast programme. The Weet-Bix and Anchor Mega Milk can be received once the programme is ready to commence (i.e. the school has the location, bowls, plates, cutlery, staff/volunteers ready to run the breakfast club)
• The school will need to indicate to us how many children it expects to provide breakfast for, and indicate how many days per week (maximum two) and we will calculate the milk and cereal requirements to cover this. Please be aware that you will receive up to 6 months of Weet-Bix at a time, so storage is required

If you have a school that is interested in joining the KickStart Breakfast programme, please get them to visit us atwww.kickstartbreakfast.co.nz writing of their interest and we will add them to our database to contact when we can expand the programme.

Your KickStart Breakfast team leaders,
Sarah Risell (Fonterra) and Mark Roper (Sanitarium)