Some Mason County students are providing holiday cheer to locals through bread baking.
Shannon Roberts, the family and consumer sciences teacher at Mason County High School, said she recently received a grant from King Arthur Flour for a “baking for good” project. The goal of the project is to teach students the science behind bread baking while also giving back to the community.
Students were tasked with baking their own bread and choosing a community member to receive the bread.
“We thought it would be an awesome project and it ended up being the best thing for us,” she said. “This has been a tough year and with us being out of school, the kids are making the bread at home. Some of the kids have been doing this with their parents, so it’s just been a wonderful project.”
According to Roberts, the kids learned how the yeast in the bread rises and how gluten forms. It took most students a little over three hours to bake the bread.
“Not only are they fulfilling the requirements of the grant, but they’re spending time with their families and they’re giving back to people,” she said. “We had one student choose a veteran, one who wanted to give the bread to her neighbor because the neighbor is battling cancer. Teenagers sometimes get a bad reputation, as a whole, as being lazy and not caring, but that’s not the case. These kids are excited about doing this.”
Roberts said King Arthur Flour provided everything except sugar, salt and oil. Roberts provided the sugar, so the students only had to provide small amounts of salt and oil to bake the bread. Afterward, they chose the person they wanted to receive the bread and set out to do so.
On Monday, two students delivered their bread.
Jamison Gifford said it took him about three and a half hours to make the bread. After he finished it, he and his family chose to deliver the bread to a veteran.
“We decided to give this to a veteran my dad knows,” he said. “He has a Thanksgiving, but he’s not able to get out as much as he used to, so I wanted to help him out a little bit. It feels good to be able to give back to someone who has given so much to us. He served our country and I know it’s not paying him back, but I hope it makes him feel better.”
Gifford said making the bread was an adventure.
“I’ve never made bread from scratch before,” he said. “I was worried it wouldn’t turn out like I hoped. I was texting Mrs. Roberts about how I was afraid it wasn’t going to work, but it turned out well.”
Lindsey Saunders chose two places to deliver her bread, Kenton Point Assisted Living and the Women’s Crisis Center.
“Since most of the people at Kenton Pointe can’t see their families for Thanksgiving, I wanted to give back to them,” she said. “The Women’s Crisis Center can always use some donations around this time.”
Saunders said she enjoyed making the bread.
“I made bread a long time ago,” she said. “The most difficult part was making sure the yeast woke up right. I wasn’t sure if it was going to wake up right. It took me about three hours. I’m glad I was able to do this and give it to people who could use it.”
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