September 2019 Tuckshop Renovation $150,000

Over the last few years, the QLD government has placed an emphasis on encouraging state schools to comply with the Smart Choices initiative to provide healthier food options to students.  Many tuckshops found themselves ill equipped to comply with these guidelines as they were mainly set up to reheat ready-made freezer meals.  EHSS and the P&C embarked on the Smart Choices journey at the end of 2017 and quickly realised that we were one of these tuckshops! We didn’t have the right type of equipment and storage space was not available to prepare fresh baked food items.  Plans began at that point for a major renovation.

Extensive consultation occurred over the next year and half with the school, tuckshop staff, families and the local community, peppered with a few excursions to other school tuckshops to identify what needed to be changed.  Along the way, the community was asked to suggest names for the new tuckshop and a survey was conducted to select the best one – Eatons Hill Snack Shack was born.

A project manager became involved in 2019 to compile all of this information together and undertake the project through the procurement process. Finally, the official renovation got underway on 26 August and continued for 4 weeks. During this time, the tuckshop operated on a limited menu out of the community hall kitchen.

Check out our ‘After’ photos – the tuckshop now has a commercial dishwasher (whereas they were washing dishes, including huge pots out of a tiny sink before), 2 induction cooktop burners (that now fit the size of the huge pots) a salad bench that keeps all of the ingredients chilled and ready to go and a freezer room (which replaces the 7 freezers we were using)!

We are now ready to take the next step on our journey on Monday 14 October!

20 September 2019 – After

19 September 2019 – During

3 September 2019 – During

28 August 2019 – During

Before