Conway High School senior Caylen Shepherd acknowledged that she was tempted to sample the gooey mixture, but with 4,500 cookies to make, there was no time, or dough, to waste.
The kitchen in the Conway Area Career Center’s culinary-arts class was a flurry of activity last week as students filled orders for cookies they had sold as a fundraising project to buy Christmas presents for needy children.
As the classes changed, instructor Jennifer Park encouraged the incoming students to hurry and “dress out,” meaning to don their white chef’s coats and hats.
“You need your gloves, ladies! Make sure you have your gloves on!” Park called out to a pair of students preparing to scoop dough.
“We’ve got a million more cookies to make,” said Trish Bowers, an assistant in the class. “Well, maybe not a million, but 4,500.”
Park said this is the second year for the cookie-sale fundraiser, which started last year on a whim.
“Last year, we kind of decided at the last minute, ‘Hey, let’s see what happens,’” she said. They sold 1,800 cookies.
“I thought baking 1,800 cookies was a lot,” she said, laughing. “We went from helping seven families to, this Christmas, I think we’re helping 10 families.”
Conway, Greenbrier and Vilonia students in the Career Center class sold three kinds of cookies — cranberry-orange, chocolate crinkles and sugar. The chocolate crinkles were the most-popular seller, followed by cranberry-orange and sugar cookies. The orders and money — a little over $1,400 — had been turned in, and students were working as fast as they could to fill the orders. Park said some students volunteered to come up after school to help get them ready.
Walmart donated plastic containers to package the cookies in, Bowers said.
“We couldn’t afford to buy them. We’re trying to help as many families as we can,” she said.
The names of families who need help buying presents for their children come from word of mouth, Bowers said.
“People give us names; people tell us stories. … God just sends it to us; that’s the bottom line,” Bowers said.
Tables in the classroom were covered with toys, games and stuffed animals. Park said students in the health-sciences classes in the Career Center bought presents for the project, too. Families were to come Wednesday and Thursday to pick up the gifts.
Jonathan Montelongo, an 18-year-old senior at Conway High School, said he didn’t sell any of the cookies, but he helped make the chocolate crinkles.
“I think it’s really nice that they’re doing this for the kids,” he said.
Second-year culinary students Brittany Cargile, 17, and Michaela Culp, 18, both of Vilonia, sold cookies and helped purchase presents.
“I think it’s great,” Cargile said. “We actually got a lot of stuff the other day.” She was most excited about a zebra-print vanity that she said they’d picked out for an older child.
Culp said she took $100 of her own money to buy gifts for the children. The young women said they recently landed their first jobs at What’s For Dinner, a Vilonia restaurant. “I have like $300 in my bank account, and I don’t want to spend it all on me,” Culp said.
Both students said they plan to attend culinary school at Pulaski Technical College in Little Rock after graduation.
Pablo Hurtado, 18, a Conway High School senior, said he enjoys the Christmas-cookie project, too.
“It has benefits for us and for [the recipients], too,” he said.
Hurtado said he has considered being a chef someday, but he did more research, “and you have to be really good. I don’t like to bake, but I like to cook, saute and stuff.” However, he pulled some perfect-looking chocolate crinkles out of the oven. “Hot pan, hot pan,” he said to students in his way as he carried it to the counter.
Park agreed with Hurtado that the project benefits the students as well as the families in need.
“The kids, I think, get a lot out of this,” Park said of the students. “It’s a service-based industry, and we don’t have a restaurant, so we can’t serve that way. The industry as a whole — when you look at Katrina, other national disasters, the tornado — restaurants pull together and serve the community. Since we don’t have a restaurant, this is a way they can serve,” Park said.
The cookie fundraiser teaches students how to bake, sell and price.
“They can take their skills in class and learn how to make a profit, and how can we use that profit to give back? All the curriculum still applies,” Park said. She said the Culinary Arts class started three years ago, expanding from a food-production class. Park said Conway is one of only five high school culinary arts programs in Arkansas, and the standards are high.
Students have to take the National Restaurant Association ServSafe exam.
“If they don’t pass or pass the equivalency, … they can’t step foot in the kitchen,” Park said.
Students in the Conway High School culinary arts program serve the public by catering banquets, school-board dinners and other functions, she said. They also hold an annual chili-supper fundraiser, with the proceeds to benefit a family connected with the school.
Park said she plans to make the cookie fundraiser an annual event, too.
“We’re going to have to plan a little earlier if we’re going to be baking 4,500 cookies,” she said, laughing again. “The kids stayed last night till almost 8:30. They have lots of fun.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.