St Joseph's Primary School's Grenfell Community Produce initiative - born from Building Healthy Communities funding and led with great passion by classroom teacher Natalie Caruana has been awarded third place in the 2025 Family Partnerships Excellence Awards by the Council of Catholic School Parents NSW/ACT.

With the support of Weddin Landcare, local organisations, families, and community volunteers, St Joseph's Primary students have created thriving garden beds, greenhouses, composting systems, and a “living classroom” that enriches learning, and wellbeing.

The initiative now supplies fresh produce to the Grenfell Food Hall and fosters sustainability skills, and community pride.

The schoole were presented with a framed certificate and a $1000 prize to support the continued growth of the project for coming third in the 2025 Family Partnerships Excellence Awards.

St Joseph's Natalie Caruana said the recognition for their students and parents shows that it is possible to turn a dream into reality with a bit of hard work, dedication and a bit of grit.

Moving forward, Ms Caruana said they will be looking at using the funds to look at how to expand their circular economy with the garden and establish a small orchard at the school.

Weddin Landcare's Melanie Cooper said it is great to see that the garden is growing and that eh kids are still enthusiastic and involved, despite some of the heat we've seen over the summer period.

Ms Cooper said the more it grows the greater the benefit it will be for them, the local community and the environment.

Cathy Garratt-Jones from the Council of Catholic School Parents NSW/ACT said they had a large number of exceptional entries in the 2025 Family Partnerships Excellence Awards.

Ms Garratt-Jones said it is clear that within the catholic schools in NSW there are many initiatives taking place to support family engagement and community building and it is wonderful to come out to Grenfell to see first-hand the wonderful work they are doing.

St Joseph's Primary School's Grenfell Community Produce initiative has been joined by garden beds and involvement at the Grenfell Preschool, Grenfell MPS and the Henry Lawson High School.

Ms Garratt-Jones said this is a wonderful example of a connected community that works together and are connected to achieve really positive outcomes which filter down to the children.

In the summary of the awards on the Council of Catholic School Parents' website, the judges stated the Grenfell Community Produce initiative was a big effort by a small community and a fantastic school-based program that has snowballed into a community group with great parent engagement.