As part of the summer Express Yourself! program for children entering grades 6-12, the Harmony Library in our home town of Glocester, Rhode Island, hosted its first Drop In & Decorate® event on July 7.
Library staff baked 200 sugar cookies, and Drop In & Decorate's own Lucia Watson created the icing colors. Lucia also attended the event and patiently demonstrated her decorating technique and tips to each of the kids as they arrived.
With a cookie in hand, everyone got right to work, expressing themselves in royal icing. In all, they decorated 150 cookies for donation. Each child got to take home one of their cookies. And of course, the broken cookies had to be eaten!
As always, every cookie was bright and colorful -- the perfect antidote to the thunderstorms outside. More than 30 middle- and high-school kids took part in the event.
Assistant Library Director Patti Folsom, who organized the event, packed the cookies the next morning and delivered them to the Glocester Food Pantry, Glocester Senior Center, and Bayberry Commons, a rehabilitation and nursing home.
Special thanks to the library staff and to all of the families who stopped by to decorate. Our first public library event was a great success.
As a person who enjoys baking and decorating cookies, especially during the holiday and as a Children's Librarian I found the idea of Drop In & Decorate a great way to give back to the community. I especially loved that you partnered with the public library. Decorating cookies was fun and gave young people a way to give back to the community. Excellent idea.
Posted by: Sharon Snow | August 20, 2009 at 05:28 PM