Cookie Joy
You probably have tasted it at least a few times in your life. Cookie joy. Maybe, for you, tastes like chocolate chip or snickerdoodle or sugar cookie or some other scrumptious variety are what you remember from your growing up years. The joy part though, isn’t just about the taste. It’s about the receiving.
When you get a cookie that’s been given to you, it’s special. If it’s a homemade cookie, it’s even more special. A cookie that is given can add a little extra sweetness to what might be an ordinary day. It can make life’s gray corners a little brighter. It possibly can even bring a smile to one’s tummy.
That’s what Kids Love Community is about. Giving Love. Giving Joy. It’s one of Chatham Alliance’s newer projects. It’s about connecting kids to those in our community who could benefit from a little more joy.
How does it work? Kids Love Community involves kids from various schools and groups. If there’s a special holiday, a special occasion, a special time of year coming up -- kids from a local school measure and prepare dry ingredients that go into making a batch of cookies. Kids from another group make unique one-of-a-kind artistic gift tags for the cookies. Another group of kids cut the ribbons that are used to package the cookies. Finally, the batches of cookies are baked and packaged by volunteers and given to folks in the community.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the words, “It takes a village…”. Kids Love Community is kind of like that. It takes kids from all over Chatham County to produce and put together cookie gifts that offer a smile.
Last Spring, Kids Love Community produced cookies that were given out for Easter joy. Children from the Culinary Club at Margaret Pollard Middle School packed and measured the dry goods for the recipe. Two hundred and eighty-five “love notes” (gift tags) were made by the Haw River Christian Academy. The youth group of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints made bows for tying up each cookie in a little package. Together the project involved 308 children loving their community.
July Fourth was another opportunity for “cookie joy.” Groups of children worked to make it happen, including the kids from Woods Charter School who made the gift tags – all unique. There were flags colored red, white, and blue and “U.S.A.” One tag was intriguing- it looked like some kind of animal colored with purple crayon. Could it be a cat? A dog? Maybe it was an opossum or possibly a beaver, but it didn’t have a beaver-like tail. The person who received the cookie thought it might be a purple cow. Whatever animal it was, I believe the child who made it delighted in making it and giving it. It was a gift of joy.
That’s what Kids Love Community is about. Yes, it is helping others, but, for the most part, it’s impacting kids to serve our community. And that’s worth it.
They’re serving up some “cookie joy”. It’s part of loving people, loving Chatham.