Pascack Valley High School’s newest club, Baking for Bergen, connects students to baking and the community to promote kindness through baked goods.
The new club bakes treats and delivers them to various organizations in the community. The club is almost entirely student-led.
“I was just in Pascack Period and thought that we don’t have a baking club at Pascack Valley, and I thought it would be something fun,” said PV Junior Leah Fox, the club’s president and founder. “I wanted a way to make it more meaningful, so that’s when I brought in the community aspect of it—reaching out to organizations and trying to spread kindness.”
The club meets monthly after school and students turn the culinary room into a full bakery. Since it’s an after-school club, it requires students to make a commitment to stay to bake or deliver.
“It’s not been as difficult as I thought,” Fox said. “I thought it would be difficult to get kids to stay after school, but mostly everybody in the club has been really good about it and we’ve had a lot of participation.”
Pascack Valley Early Childhood and Culinary teacher, Nicole Alpern, is the club’s advisor and has helped guide students each month.
“The idea really came from Leah, it didn’t come from me, which I actually think is more impactful,” Alpern said. “We had to come up with an idea and a name, and we sat down together, but it was really all Leah that did it. I’m just supporting her.”
In its first year, Baking for Bergen has become a club with over 40 members. Due to its size, the club splits into smaller groups for safety and efficiency.
“For me, as a teacher, to have 40 kids in the culinary room, it’s just not safe, so we break it up into groups,” Alpern said. “Each month, we have a meeting, and Leah sends out a form to see who’s baking and who’s delivering. We have committee members that sit down and talk about what we’re doing each month.”
October, for instance, was Fire Prevention Month. During this month the club baked cookies for local firefighters.
“We wrapped the cookies in platters and presented them to the firefighters,” Alpern said. “They had something that they could reflect upon instead of just giving the cookies and leaving.”
In the future, the club is interested in baking for different first responders as well as teachers for Teacher Appreciation Month.
“We’re trying to figure out month-by-month, who in the community we can show some appreciation for,” Alpern said.
Since it’s the first year, the club is a “probationary club” at PV. After the school year, it will be reevaluated by administrators and can be introduced as a permanent club next year.
Though the club members thought that there would be challenges with raising money and getting interest, it has been running smoothly.
“The students raised all the money,” Alpern said. “We had a bake sale, and by selling baked goods, we earned money, and then we used that money to purchase the ingredients needed. I thought it was going to be harder than it was, but it ended up being very simple.”
There is also a collaborative aspect of the club, with kids of all grades working together in the kitchen.
“When you’ve done something enough times, you’re comfortable with it,” Alpern said. “First time, you’re like, ‘I don’t know.’ These are new people and we’re doing something new, so it’s a lot of team-building.”
Overall, the point of the club is to give back to the community and teach the lesson that giving at any level is infectious.
“It’s easy to do things for yourself, but it’s not so easy to do something for someone else and then make the connection…[and] look how happy that person is,” Alpern said. “The students are enjoying baking and giving, and the recipients enjoy getting a gift. It’s contagious.”
