By Connie Goh (Educational Leader)
The grant that we received from AGECS has helped us to further support and engage with people who live within our community. With the new Street Library and Street Pantry installed just outside of our service, our children, families, neighbourhood, and the local community will be able to access books and food at any time that is convenient for them; besides the food pantry that we already have offered inside of our service.
The intention of setting up a Street Library and Street Pantry serves a few purposes that enhance the quality practices in our service.
Street Library
We like to share our love for reading not only with our children but also with the local community. Creating a space to share books will provide numerous opportunities for language and literacy learning and allows children to develop their emergent literacy skills.
Street Pantry
The addition of our Street Pantry will encourage people to ‘give what you can and take what you need’. We recognise the diverse socio-economic status of our community and so we aim to develop a space that provides vulnerable community members with resources, whilst enhancing our contributions to the space by funding continued provisions.
Our Centre Leadership Team have brainstormed and planned about what we could use the grant for and how we could further support our children, families and communities. We decided that by providing and sharing books and food to/with our children, families and neighbourhood on an ongoing basis, we will support engagement of families in our service, as well as build collaborative partnerships with the community through this endeavour. We believe this will increase the quality of our service as it aligns with the Quality Area 6 in the National Quality Standards.