At 76, Violet sees the kids have a meal before school
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A HEALTH scare has done nothing to slow down the irrepressible head of Nowra East Public School’s breakfast program, Violet Lord.
Mrs Lord recently had health problems, which doctors attributed to her suffering a minor stroke.
“But I didn’t,” the 76-year-old said. “It was just my diabetes playing up.”
That diabetic turn has done nothing to stem Mrs Lord’s enthusiasm for the breakfast program that feeds up to 65 children on any given day, or the children attending the school.
“There are some beautiful little kids here,” she said.
“They have beautiful manners, the lot of them. Sure, there are just a few who don’t at times when they get a bit excited but most of them certainly do.
“And the Aboriginal kids we have here are simply beautiful,” Mrs Lord said.
The breakfast club goes through huge amounts of food including 60 loaves of bread each week, which Mrs Lord said was well up on the 15 loaves needed when the program started many years ago.
Funding for the program comes from a range of sources, while several businesses provide products free of charge or at reduced costs, while Mrs Lord said she was fortunate to have a full roster of helpers that included a doctor and a real estate agent.
“We’re pretty lucky really, because when we started we couldn’t really get anything,” she said.
She sees plenty of children every day, and is a strong believer in the benefits of the breakfast program, ensuring children had food in their stomachs before starting their lessons.
“If children are hungry then they won’t work,” she said.
There were even occasions where it appeared the school’s breakfasts were the only food some children ate all day.
Mrs Lord said those occasions were really sad, and she made sure to give those children extra wrapped up in paper for their lunches during the day.
Throughout her dealings with the school’s children, Mrs Lord has displayed the same sort of compassion that saw her take many children into her home over the years.
After giving birth to her first child at age 20, Mrs Lord and husband John lost twins, and decided it was easier to adopt.
They adopted a child before having another of their own, and have since taken in so many children Mrs Lord has lost count.
Even now she can have nine or 10 around the dinner table, with none of them blood relatives of either Mr or Mrs Lord.
Several times she has taken in indigenous and non-indigenous children who mothers have died, while there is one teenage boy living with Mrs Lord who simply arrived three years ago asking if he could stay for a while, and has never left.
That tradition has continued, with one of Mrs Lord’s grand-daughters now taking in babies in need of a home.