Seaforth Public School recently hosted a first-time family event that they called the “Wellness Feast & Festival” as part of the school’s work towards wellness and well-being, as connected to Ontario’s Wellbeing Strategy for Education.
Families were encouraged to attend a variety of Wellness Festival Sessions:
- Cardio Dance Fitness with Kathy Rivett
- Fit Body Boot Camp with Nadine VandenHeuvel
- Cooperative Team Games with staff from Camp Kintail
- Mindfulness with Julie Talbot
- Health Unit Outreach led by Health Unit staff including Michelle Carter, Liz Higgins and Bonnie Baynham
Following these energetic events, families were invited to the gymnasium to enjoy a Wellness Feast of local foods. Students were responsible for the decorations throughout the gymnasium and for creating tabletop floral arrangements of flowers from Blooms n’ Rooms in Seaforth.
A local Huron-Perth map was displayed, with posters promoting each local farm/grower/business of where the food items had come from. The dinner delicious spread included: pulled pork (The Whole Pig – Dashwood), fresh buns (Culbert’s Bakery – Goderich), spring salad and veggies (Local Organics – Seaforth), local dressings (The Garlic Box – Hensall), Local Cheese (Blyth Farm Cheese – Blyth), Apple and Rhubarb Crisp which was sweetened with honey and maple syrup (Ferguson’s Honey – Zurich, and Blyth Creek Maple Farm – Blyth), local milk (VanDieten Family and Local Milk Board) and fresh cider (Wellesley Apple Products – Wellesley).
During the meal time, families were invited to participate in social “get-to-know-you” question games at the tames, and sing along to the beautiful live music of a local family band, The Honey Sweethearts (Heather, Steve, Ava, Molly and Felix Dawe).
Together, all of these elements came together to create a wonderful atmosphere and celebration of wellness.
All of the food was prepared by the students as they incorporated safe food handling and preparation skills, along with learning about the local connection of how their food has traveled from “farm to fork” in order to arrive on their plates.
The event’s success was due to the excellent collaboration of students, staff, families and the Seaforth School Advisory Committee. About 100 people participated and certainly left well-fed and well-informed about wellness.