Cookie the Kookaburra is helping children and their families at Ingol Community Primary School

Cookie the Kookaburra has been a welcome addition to classrooms at Ingol Community Primary School in Preston this year. He is the mascot of The Rapid Relief Team (RRT) that supplies food boxes and Early Bird Learning educational resources to children in primary schools and their families.

Fay Malyon, Learning Mentor at the school, said: ‘The food boxes have been a great relief to many of our families throughout the pandemic and now this cost of living crisis. Parents have commented that the quality and contents of the food boxes have been great and have helped them get by to the next pay day.’

Each school engaged in the Early Bird Learning Program has received its very own Cookie the Kookaburra, alongside worksheets and breakfast bowls, which the pupils can take home to encourage them to eat a healthy breakfast of ‘brain food’ such as porridge, slow burning carbs and fruit.

Hungry children can’t focus on their lessons so Cookie is joining the fight against hunger with his nutritionally balanced, healthy eating Smarrt Cookie Bars. Early Bird Learning has provided the Breakfast Club with water bottles, bowls and ‘sporks’ which have a spoon at one end and a fork at the other.

The RRT also provides an interactive Cookie video that discusses mental health and wellbeing from a child’s perspective, creating a meaningful and engaging story that has proved to be a great tool for teachers. ‘In PSHE we have a focus on My Happy Mind,’ said Fay.  Post Covid, many children are experiencing anxiety and Cookie with his workbooks and key messages can help here.