Macintyre High, BEST Food Garden are top winners in Innovation Awards

Macintyre High School and the BEST Food Garden took the top prizes for the Research and Education and Agriculture/Horticulture and Associated Services categories respectively. As part of the New England High Country Councils, Tourism Inverell was awarded for Retail, Tourism and Leisure.

Macintyre teacher Deb Snaith was a bit taken aback by the attention for the school’s ever growing agriculture program, which now delivers certificate three in the subject.

“You don’t want a big fuss made about it because you think you’re doing your job,” she said. She said it was a whole school effort, and was pleased to see the community back their hard work.

“We really do very well, Macintyre, across the private sector and the public school sector and I think a lot of the kids are starting to see that and I know a lot of the parents are, especially the ones who trail around the countryside with me,” she said.

“It’s filtering out to the community, and I think there’s tremendous support for what we do in the community.”

“I was over the moon. It was fantastic,” BEST Employment social programs co-ordinator Danny Middleton said. He was thrilled to see the food garden initiative recognised by the wider community.

“There’s really nothing like it. You’ve got all these groups involved to produce food that is then delivered by people with disabilities to four shires and two federal electorates to those in need,” he said.

Just two years old, Ashford Salami Festival organiser Lorrayne Riggs was delighted to see the event make the finals.

“If we can achieve a finalist spot in our second year, imagine what we can achieve if we’re still going in 30 years,” she said.

Inverell’s Regional Finance Solutions also received a highly commended in the Professional and Government services category.