Sustainability Corner

UNDER THE OLIVE TREES AT RPS, SOMETHING SPECIAL HAPPENED IN MAY

Sustainability Captains, Grade 5 volunteers, Year 1/2 representatives and a handful of Green Team parents gathered beneath the school’s olive trees, hand-rakes in hand, ready for our very first harvest.

Students worked together to solve the challenge of how to get the ripe olives from the branches, while parents used longer rakes to reach the higher ones. Nets were spread across the ground to catch as many olives as possible, and excitement grew as the esky slowly filled.

Once full, the harvest was taken to The Corner Store Network in Oakleigh, where the olives were processed and preserved into jars of whole olives and delicious tapenade. The Corner Store Network generously does this free of charge, keeping a small portion of the produce to sell in their shop to cover costs.

(Highly recommend checking out this incredible social enterprise- especially their Timor Leste grown coffee, roasted fresh on site!)

The jars have now been collected, and they will be used by Lee in Snack Shack with some extra jars to be sold at our future Ripper Produce Stall!  

Have you been thinking about getting involved with Sustainability projects?

Be part of helping us next year with our olive trees, in the children’s productive or Indigenous gardens or even contribution towards short- & long-term sustainability initiatives such as energy consumption in our school. 

If interested, please send an email to the office ripponlea.ps@education.vic.gov.au with your name & mobile and we’ll look forward to having you on board the Green team in 2026. 

See you soon!