Volunteers Bake Sweet Treats at St. Pete’s

mvitale

From left, Heritage Homestead volunteers Georgie, Ryan, Marisa and Victoria display their cookie confections. (Photo courtesy of Jen Bowman)

By MADDY VITALE The smell of freshly baked cookies wafted through the hallway of St. Peter’s United Methodist Church in Ocean City, where volunteers were creating tasty treats for a good cause. The team members at St. Pete’s work together on holiday cookie-making for homebound residents and others in the community each year. And on Wednesday, they received some much-appreciated help in the kitchen thanks to volunteers in the community from Heritage Homestead, an adult daycare program for people with disabilities, students from Ocean City High School’s work-based learning program W.A.V.E., and high school students from the Interact Club. They each had a role to play -- from baking, to putting stickers on packaging, to packing up, to delivering. Some of the volunteers spent the morning and early afternoon sprinkling colored sugar onto butter cookies, creating “pinchies” and “spritz” cookies. Some cookies were shaped like Christmas trees, others like stars. All of them looked delicious.

Jen Bowman, left, of St. Peter's United Methodist Church and Rebecca from Heritage Homestead are all smiles displaying some freshly baked cookies. Jen Bowman, an active member of St. Peter’s United Methodist Church, is also the adult leader of Kookie Kids, and with the help of volunteers, the cookies become a yummy treat surprise for people in the community. Bowman said the help from the volunteers is wonderful because they provide a great help to the church volunteers to do a service for homebound residents and others in the community. “It really empowers them,” she said. Kookie Kids is a charitable foundation run by kids helping kids. Bowman’s family, specifically her daughter, Katie, created Kookie Kids eight years ago. The cookies are sold in the lobby of the church. In addition, they are added as treats to the 200 Christmas dinners given out by St. Pete’s ministry on Christmas morning as well as being delivered to homebound residents. Joanne Budnick is one of several members of the church who regularly volunteers to help make cookies and other goodies to give to people in the community. Budnick, wearing her “baking” hat, remarked about the help from the volunteers at the school and daycare program. “It’s great,” she said, while not missing a beat while putting cookies into the oven. “We love seeing the volunteers, and they help us so much.”

Heritage Homestead Program Director Jacob Johnson and staff member Amber Clifford help sticker cookie containers with Ocean City brothers Patrick, right, and Billy. Heritage Homestead is a daycare program in Marmora for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It offers fun things for them to do in the community, according to the program description in its brochure. “We honestly do love it here. It gives us an opportunity to get out in the community to do good things,” noted program director for Heritage Homestead Jacob Johnson. Heritage Homestead requested that the last names of people in their program not be published. The volunteers from the program seemed to be having a great time working together to create tasty confections. Two of the volunteers, Rebecca, 30, and 28-year-old Caroline, decorated sugar cookies and chatted with the church volunteers. They each carefully shook colored sugar out of Dixie cups onto two-inch cookies shaped like Christmas trees. “It’s so much fun,” Caroline said. “I like doing the sugaring,” Rebecca added.

Caroline, left, and Rebecca, both from Heritage Homestead, sugar the cookies as Jen Bowman looks on. Like W.A.V.E.S. students, Heritage Homestead volunteers can help out once a month if they wish with cookie-making. Johnson said it is something that the Heritage Homestead staff and program participants would love to do again. Students from Ocean City High School's W.A.V.E. program also had a good time Wednesday doing their part. “It’s fun. I make some good cookies and I like working with everyone,” Jules Sardinas, 18, of Ocean City, said. “I really like making sugar cookies the best.” He was joined by other W.A.V.E. students, Mia Palmer, 18, and David Caracciolo, 22, who also took part in the program. W.A.V.E. stands for Work, Access, Vocational, Experiences, students. Jessica DeBiaso, a special education teacher and coordinator of the W.A.V.E. program, said the students love coming to help out. “It’s an amazing experience for the students to meet with people in the community and help out. We do this once a month and the students really enjoy it,” DeBiaso said.

W.A.V.E. students in red shirts, Mia Palmer, David Caracciolo and Jules Sardinas in foreground, with school staff, from left, Jessica DiBiaso, Caroline Breslin, Tom Crowell and Ron Ewing kneeling. Members of the high school’s Interact Club also came out to help with the cookies. Reese Powell, of Marmora, and co-president with Lily Robert, of Upper Township, are both juniors. They both said that they like to help people. “I go to St. Peter’s for church, and I have grown up very comfortable here, and to give back to somewhere I have come to since I was little is really rewarding,” Reese said. Lily explained that the Interact Club is made up of about 20 to 30 active members. They began helping out a lot at St. Pete’s over the last few years. “Last year we did the cookie baking,” Lily said. “This year we already sold 50 boxes of cookies and all of the proceeds of the sales go to the St. Peter’s ministry, which provides meals to the community.” Cookies are available for sale in the church lobby Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, call the church office at 609-399-2988.