The culinary class and FCCLA club came together after school late November to bake a hundred cookies for the Moanalua’s Elementary School Fun Fair. The activity was a good opportunity for students to apply what they are learning in class with community service. Multiple students along with FCCLA Club advisor and culinary teacher Justine Perkins, made fifty s’more cookies and fifty blondie cookies.
On Monday November 27, seven students came after school to make the dough for all hundred cookies. The baking session ended at 4:30 p.m., about two hours after school ended.
A few days later on November 30, more students came by to help bake and package all the cookies. Although there were more hands to help, it still took all the students until 5:30 p.m. to bake and package the cookies in time for the December 1 deadline.
While it might seem that staying at school until 5:30 p.m. is still rather early compared to other after school baking sessions. Krystal Guo, the FCCLA club president, had to stay until 7:00 p.m. for one baking session. The reason for staying that long is because students have to bake the dough, package then label all the cookies.
This batch was relatively small and was a donation. That was just the warm-up for the later challenge of baking 500 cookies for the Dec. 9 Music Department Craft Fair, a fundraising event for the program. On other days of the year, the culinary and FCCLA spend their afternoons on reasonable-sized batches of cookies, making treats for Mene Mart, the business department’s after-school shop run by DECA, the student-run business club.
The long, sometimes hot hours after school are not a burden to these budding pastry chefs. All of the students who stay after school have their own reasons for participating.
“I like how we can come together and bake… I like baking with friends,” freshman Kelvin Hung-Ino said.
Students enjoy the act of baking for its social aspect, having the opportunity to hang out with their friends and doing fun activities with each other, all while doing it for a good cause.
“I enjoy the calm feeling… and eating the food that we bake,” senior Demari Velasquez said.
Demari is given the chance to unwind and use baking for relaxation, and of course enjoying good food.
“I like the people… I like to cook,” senior Leilani Shinshiro said.
Leilani enjoys the community brought together through cooking.
Advising the group is also fulfilling, albeint sometimes stressful, for Perkins.
“I enjoy meeting a lot of new and different students,” she said.
The kitchen, for Perkins, goes beyond teaching others how to cook and bake. For the former pastry chef at a high-end Honolulu restaurant, Perkins said the long afternoons allow her to meet new students and help them learn how to problem solve and work as a team, life skills necessary in and out of the kitchen.
