By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
Rarely is a reason required to enjoy a brownie, but when that treat helps students learn about what humanity has discovered beyond our planetary confines, it might taste a bit sweeter.
Thursday marks the last day Holy Family Elementary School will accept orders for the annual Gifts in a Jar fundraiser.
Proceeds from this year’s sales will help send the school’s fourth grade students on a field trip to Hutchinson to visit the Cosmosphere in the spring during the student’s studies of space, said fourth grade teacher Maddy Quimby.
“The students love it,” Quimby said. “We love it, too.”
While the day will help the students learn about space as they explore some of the most notable artifacts from human spaceflight history, the effort contains valuable lessons, said fourth grade teacher Teresa Schrant.
“Maddie teaches science, and I teach social studies, so with the social studies lesson, we talk about business profit, assembly lines and such,” Schrant said. “And we use this project to raise our money to buy tickets for the customer sphere, which is the science part of our project.”
Like in previous years, two mixes will be for sale — a brownie mix and a soup mix.
“It's the same recipes we've used in the past,” Quimby said. “They are family favorites. They make good gifts in this holiday season. One of each is the perfect balance, soup and brownies.”
After the jars are made, orders will be ready for delivery on the Monday before Thanksgiving, Schrant said.
“We'll pack them on the 21st assembly line style, Quimby said. “And then if they order through a student, the student will deliver it to them, or they can stop by the school and pick them up.”
She said the school’s 47 fourth graders would participate with a bit of guidance.
“Thankfully, we have parents to help us out, too,” Quimby said.
“We ran two lines of brownie assembly on either side of the table that takes, I would say, probably about 20 students to do that,” Schrant said. “And then we run an assembly line to put the spice mixes together for the noodle soup. And then we have kids filling jars with noodles and cutting ribbons, and taping directions onto the jars. So, it's pretty busy.”
Quimby said the community is also essential to the school's fundraisers throughout the year.
“We always appreciate the community and their support of the school and all of the many fundraisers that we do,” she said. “We couldn't do without the community support.”
Orders can be placed through the students. Order forms are also available in the school newsletter.
“And they could probably call the office too and be able to get an order,” Quimby said.
Jars cost $12.
“We started sales just last week,” Schrant said. “And we need to close that out on Thursday because kids are not in school on Friday. We have an in-service. … That gives us a week to round everything up to get all our ingredients in our jars and have things ready to go on the 21st.”
