Cookies and Class: how Drop In & Decorate fits into service learning

Written and photographed by Michaella Hammond in St. Louis, Missouri

For the past two years I’ve taught an interdisciplinary course at St. Louis Community College-Meramec where my students and I incorporate service learning into our general education curriculum.

I’ve found that the concepts we discuss around the theme of do-it-yourself culture and the closeness we feel as a learning community is solidified through the hands-on fun and work of service learning. After a service learning project, my students know one another not just as students but as friends, and hopefully gain a lifelong commitment to be part of the solution in building stronger communities in our cities and towns.

So, I was ecstatic to find out about Drop In & Decorate this past summer as I was poking around the blogosphere.

I had just started my own baking blog, A Girl and Her Oven, and stumbled upon Terry B’s super delightful food blog, Blue Kitchen. His hearty endorsement of Drop In & Decorate intrigued me and combined two of my favorite passions: community action and baking. So, this semester I gave my students two choices: volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, or create a Drop In & Decorate® event.

Students Alex, Amber, Caitlin, Chinara, John, Kristin, Liz, Randi, and Ryan were up for the cookie-baking and -decorating challenge; my good friend, Nicole Hunt, Event and Gift Manager of Hollyberry Baking Company, asked bakery founder Holly Cunningham for the use of the company’s commercial kitchen. Holly graciously said yes!

Liz Lowder, Support Services Coordinator at Safe Connections, was instrumental in getting the 100 cookies we baked on November 15, 2009 to the women, staff, and volunteers who work to end domestic violence in the St. Louis metro. All in all, the sugar cookies we baked and decorated connected my students to the small yet gratifying act of taking time to put a little homespun sunshine into others’ lives.

I cannot wait to organize my next Drop In & Decorate event just in time for the holidays. I’m sure I’ll be able to call on several of my students, this semester and semesters’ past, and friends to make this event just as spectacular as the one we did in November.

Thanks galore to Lydia and everyone who makes Drop In & Decorate hum. I truly believe that this movement is important. Decorating cookies is not silly or simple. Giving others cookies when luck or life has been less than generous reminds people that they’re important and someone else cares.

Comfort food in a discomforting world has relevance, and I hope other educators will consider using Drop In & Decorate as a meaningful way to connect students to their communities.

Comments

[Amanda]

They did so great!! I love their cookies and how they all work together.. wonderful!!

I forgot to send you the links to my drop in and decorate posts...
http://iammommy.typepad.com/i_am_baker/2009/11/cookies-for-kids-part-two.html

and

http://iammommy.typepad.com/i_am_baker/2009/11/alphabet-and-rainbow-cookies.html

Thanks for all you do!

[Michaella Hammond]

Thanks Lydia for letting us share our service learning project with you and your readers. I love Drop In & Decorate, and my students are ecstatic to see themselves on your site. Thanks for the 15 minutes of fame. We have caught the cookie-decorating bug. It may be hard to stop us now!

Happily,
Michaella