North east vic - Day 2

Day 2 Community time at Oxley Primary School

Another wonderful start to the day with a visit to Oxley Primary school to get our hands dirty.

Today was all about helping out a small rural school with some projects that needed completing.

AFFE came in to help take out an existing garden that was a little overgrown and not utilised as much as it could have been, to plant a new native garden, that included edible plants, flowering natives and pollinator attracting plants.

The small people where super excited to meet the 'big farmers' and where eager to dig and pull out plants.

There was a lot of team work and some muscle needed to pull out some plants that had been there for a while and where hard to budge, but the determination of the group saw the garden bed cleared in no time ready for some manure and new plants to go in.

The other job that needed to be completed was some wood splitting. The timber had been cut up from limbs that had fallen around the school yard over time and needed to be split up and was going to be sold to raise extra funds for the school (any one in Vic need some fire wood, contact Oxley PS). This was a big job, it required all hands on deck and took all day, but with the help of the little people who worked so hard to move and stack the split wood and the big people who worked the log splitter all day the job was complete. A huge thank-you to a local farmer for lending us the log splitter for the day, making the job much easier.

At lunch time there was some time for a quick Basketball game with the big kids joining in with the fun.

It is important to AFFE to show the little people what is possible in agriculture by visiting primary schools with the big people and creating the opportunity for them to work together. It was evident how much the little people looked up to our AFFE students, some not wanting to leave their side the whole day! To give the big people the chance to share their skills and knowledge in such a patient and caring way was a highlight of the trip. Not to mention the amazing work that was completed which would have taken the school many weekends of volunteers to get done.

We are grateful to Mr Seal at Oxley PS for allowing us the opportunity to work with the school.

After all our work was complete we thought it was time for some sight seeing, showing the Qld'ers the place of Ned Kelly's capture with a quick visit to Glenrowen and the Greta cemetery to see if they could find where Ned Kelly was buried.

It was a late evening back to camp, with some a fire and some yummy warm food it was off to bed after a busy day to do it all again in the morning.