[Just as Vancouver’s school year was heading to an earlier end than normal, student Kendra Wong sent us this submission recently about a different side to education this year. — Editor]
Making a difference in the world sounds like a big job — and it is. However, kids and teens, despite their age and size, have proven to be up to the task, even if it’s through something as seemingly insignificant as baked goods. For five Grade 11 students who attended Sir Charles Tupper secondary this year, making a difference came in the form of cakepops.
Helen Zhou, Monique Tang, Sophie Tang, and Lily Sum, all 17, began thinking of fundraising for charity together in September. The group was joined by Rachaelle Nguyen, 16, when she had time.
Baking is a passion of theirs. Usually, they bake desserts and find these preferable to cooking other foods because they like how sweet desserts are. Originally, they thought about selling regular cake at school.
However, after some thought, it was decided that cake would be too messy and inconvenient for customers, so the girls did a little research and found their solution: cakepops.
“It’s a sweet and small dessert that can be eaten anywhere without a mess,” they explained as a group via email through Monique Tang.
The group have all taken classes from Foods teacher Siu Ma, who they say has helped prepare them for the future when they will be living by themselves. Ma makes everyone conscious of the cost of ingredients during class and tells them how to get the most out of each ingredient.
They said they chose to do this project “because some families aren’t fortunate enough to always have food on the table like us.”
By being their sponsor teacher, Ma played an even bigger role in the project, as she is the reason this project was possible.
Ma supplied a classroom at lunch and after school in which to bake in, kitchen equipment, suggestions, and much more.
Support came not only from Ma, but from other teachers and students as well. These girls were given suggestions for improvement or ideas for new flavours, and word spread of their fundraising.
At the end of this school year, all of the money raised will be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which grants wishes to children with terminal illnesses.
“We always hear people on their deathbed saying they regret not doing what they want and did not have the life they wanted,” they wrote. “So because they are about to leave this world, it’s nice to be able to help someone have an unforgettable last memory.”
You’d think that it would be hard to be a teenager, trying to make a difference in an adult-oriented world, but these girls say they’ve been encouraged every step of the way.
“Tupperites always encouraged us... We are really grateful for the massive support we have.”
They say the never felt discouraged during sales, because they always sold out.
Although baking is their passion, the five found time management to be their main issue. School work interfered with the baking and selling of the cakepops. Many high schoolers find there aren’t enough hours in a day for everything — and this is for people who aren’t spending their spare time baking. You can imagine how it would be hard to fit around five and a half hours at a time, baking around 130 cakepops.
The girls made two batches of cakepops, which is a total of around 220 cakepops, sold at $1 each the first time, and then $1.50 the next time, due to the cakepops being bigger with more elaborate designs.
The actual selling of cakepops turned out to be another challenge. Tupper students are very busy people. Kids on sports teams might be gone for games, some kids were gone for work experience for the week, and others had extracurricular activities after school. Despite the fact that sales probably would have done better if they occurred at lunch, the five were only allowed to sell after school.
Baking was done on days when time can be afforded, and when Ma’s classroom was free to use. The process involves baking the cakes, making the icing, rolling the cake into balls, dipping them in chocolate and finally decorating them.
Having raised a total of around $235 so far, they plan to continue next September.
“It’s a great feeling of accomplishment that can’t really be explained until you feel it yourself!”
Their advice for others looking to make a difference? “We would like to tell kids/teens that you don’t need to do something big to help out. You can combine your passion (for us it is baking) and your desire to help others together. If you do that, it will be really fun, and you’ll be helping others as well.”
Kendra Wong is a student at Eric Hamber secondary.
