By Mikayla van Loon
After two years of being unable to do proper events for both the school and broader community, Victoria Road Primary School in Lilydale is eager to be hosting an Easter Egg Hunt on the Easter long weekend.
Although not something the school has ever done before, assistant principal Jane Searle said the parent fundraising committee saw it as a great opportunity to raise funds for the school and bring everyone together.
“Anything that’s been able to bring our community together has been cancelled or rescheduled or reorganised to online really since 2019. So it will be a nice opportunity to bring the community together as well,” she said.
Having been on the cards for a while, Ms Searle said the fundraiser will go towards improvements of the school’s grounds and particular outdoor learning areas.
“We’re raising the money for landscaping the top part of our school. All the funds will go towards that. It’s pretty drab at the moment. So we’re looking to have a complete overhaul really in that area, including all sorts of learning spaces and outside play spaces.”
Wanting to work with the children in outdoor spaces in creative ways, the school already has a small permaculture garden and greenhouse for its herbology gardening program, a reference to the Harry Potter name for plant studies.
Inspiring the children to learn outdoors, be creative and understand the gardening process, Ms Searle said the school community and parents hope to expand the development into other areas.
“Long term, what we’d like to be able to do is continue to fundraise money and shift what is currently an unused block in the school into a kitchen space so that we can grow our own produce and sell it at the canteen and see the plant to plate type thing playing out.”
On Saturday 16 April the school will be hosting three Easter egg hunt sessions to be booked by families with the times being 10.30am, 11.15am and 12pm.
A sausage sizzle, ice cream and coffee van, as well as arts, crafts and other activities will be set up for people to enjoy before and after the egg hunt on the oval.
Ms Searle said the day is open to everyone, not just the school community and she hopes people take advantage of the event.
Tickets are $10 and bookings need to be made for each egg hunt time slot.
