Stay informed with the LNN Daily Newsletter

Students at Granum School giving back this holiday season by baking treats for seniors

Nov 26, 2017 | 9:56 AM

GRANUM – A grade 7, 8, 9 class at Granum School is doing a citizenship option this year, and the goal for teachers is to find ways for the kids to contribute to both their school and community.

This year that includes baking cookies.

Principal Jackie Kark says they’ve partnered with some ladies in town who called themselves the Cookie Ladies.

“For the last couple of years they’ve been finding volunteers in the community who bake, and then they deliver the cookies to single seniors in Granum.”

This year the school has taken on being one of the contributing bakers, so they’re putting together packages of treats for 24 seniors in town.

Kark says the cookies will be sent to the drop-in center in Granum, and then they’ll be delivered through whatever means the Cooking Ladies use.

“If we continue this initiative, I’d like to see the next step maybe being the kids actually taking the baked treats out and delivering them,” Kark added.

The initiative is the first of it’s kind at the school, and Kark says it’s only her second year in Granum so this was the first she’d heard about the Cooking Ladies.

“It was just kind of by chance that I was talking with a student’s mom and she mentioned that there’s a group of ladies in town that does this. It was something they took upon themselves a few years ago after seeing there was a need for it. The ladies wanted to make sure that everyone felt included during the holidays, and if that’s something we can bring into the school and show to kids as an example, everyone will be better for it,” Kark said, adding tiny little acts of leadership can have a big impact.

This is the third project the kids have taken on this year.

The first thing the class did was help a staff member plan the Terry Fox run earlier this year, and the school is working with the Franklin Covey Institute to really pursue leadership training for students.

“Through this class, we’re trying to have the kids take on activities that were traditionally very teacher led,” Kark continued. “Through October and early November, they organized and advertised for the Christmas shoe boxes and actually delivered 59 of them.”

“Now we’re doing the cookies, and I’m really leaving it up to the kids to come up with ideas of what they think we need to do and then build a project around that.”