Geelong’s newest and coolest hospitality hotspot is about to hit the road next week with the launch of MacKillop Education’s mobile café, the Bittersweet food truck.
Run by senior students at the Geelong school who plan the menus, prepare food and serve customers, the mobile café expands the students’ practical employment skills and customer interaction experience.
MacKillop Education schools support young people who struggle to learn and attend mainstream schools. Students have unique learning needs, many with social and emotional challenges that can be better supported in a smaller setting.
Initiatives like the Bittersweet mobile café provide young people with opportunities to learn and thrive, in safe and supportive environments that encourage academic and social success.
The Bittersweet food truck is the extension of a clever initiative that launched at the MacKillop Education school in 2018. Thinking of an innovative way to inspire senior students to engage in learning, teachers came up with the Bittersweet project and launched a small school café catering to fellow students and teachers.
Skye Staude, Co-Principal at MacKillop Education Geelong school explains how the café and food truck offer an alternate way to learn traditional subjects like maths and English.
“Measuring, weighing and ordering ingredients help kids build numeracy skills, while planning menus develops market research experience and improves literacy skills. Working as a team also helps develop social and problem-solving abilities.”
Buoyed by the café’s success, in 2023, the Bittersweet team set its sights on a bigger dream – to take its café on the road, delivering a menu of tasty treats and drinks to the local Geelong community.
The brightly coloured Bittersweet food truck will become a regular favourite at a variety of local sites, including the Bellarine Living and Learning Centre at Whittington. Plans are underway to extend its community reach in 2025.
With the project aligned to the Victorian Education and Training (VET) Cookery and Workplace Skills certificates, senior students have the opportunity to complete a range of certified industry courses, like barista training, food handling and safety, and First Aid, along with learning practical hospitality skills, all of which will help with future training or employment opportunities.
Skye adds, “The best thing about Bittersweet is that it gives the students self-worth. The look on their faces when they are proud of a product they have made or delivered is priceless, and that is what we are trying to teach these students; to have self-confidence, to know they can make a difference to other people’s day.”
