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Matchbox are very proud and excited to announce a new partnership with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation.

This creative, long-term partnership features financial, resource and high-quality kitchenware product support to help grow and sustain the educational outcomes of the Kitchen Garden Program nationally.

The partnership is being launched with a national online competition to find the best recipes by kids in Australia. With more than $20,000 in kitchenware prizes for students and their schools, children are being encouraged to create a tasty recipe using fresh, seasonal produce of their choice.

Entry is open to children Australia-wide, aged 8-12 years old. Those who are too old to enter can still win prizes by voting for recipes. The competition closes on 31 October 2010. For more information and to enter click here.

The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation was established by Melbourne chef and food writer, Stephanie Alexander OAM in 2004, in response to the overwhelming interest in and success of the piloting of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program at Collingwood College, Melbourne, from 2001. The Foundation exists to pleasurably engage and educate young children in growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing delicious and healthy food. The Foundation believes early intervention is essential if children are to build the values, skills and understandings to develop life-long joyful and healthy eating habits. The mission and purpose of the Foundation is expressed through the flagship Kitchen Garden Program.

The Kitchen Garden Program is currently being implemented in 138 government funded primary schools spanning every state and territory in Australia with 60% of participating schools situated in regional areas and 40% in metropolitan areas. This sees the program currently reach almost 14,000 students ages 8-12 in a diverse range of socio-economic areas, the majority in lower socio-economic areas. These schools introduce a total of 3,450 new students to the Program each year. By 2012 over 200 schools around Australia will be Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Schools with 20,000 children actively engaged in the Program each year.

The philosophy of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation is founded on the principles of sustainability, innovation and life-long learning. It values excellence, hands-on experience and encourage respect for the land, self and each other.

The goal of the Foundation is for every Australian child to have the opportunity to experience the Kitchen Garden Program at primary school.

"I believe that education has to be education for life. The children in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program learn how to grow, harvest, prepare and share delicious and wholesome food, experiences that will influence and inform the rest of their lives. They also learn to relate to each other, to work in groups, to care about the planet, be cooperative and embrace difference." Stephanie Alexander

As participants in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, students discover the pleasures of hands-on food education, through regular classes in a productive vegetable garden and a home-style kitchen classroom. Students learn to build and maintain a garden according to organic principles, and to grow and harvest a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs. An abundant vegetable garden is created within the school grounds to provide edible, aromatic and beautiful resources for the school kitchen. In the kitchen, students prepare a range of delicious dishes from the seasonal produce they've grown. The finished meal is arranged with pride and care on tables set with flowers from the garden. The shared meal is a time for students, specialists, teachers and volunteers to enjoy the fruits of their labour, and each other's company and conversation.

The Program complements many aspects of the integrated school curriculum.

"This is real scrape-the-bowl and dirt-under-the-fingernails learning and the kids love it."
Stephanie Alexander

Please visit www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au for the latest information on the Foundation, its work, grants for schools and the ways you can be a part of the pleasurable food education revolution.