I’ve never been a big person for sweets, but due to the fact that I love baking them, I jumped at the opportunity to help my team with our recent fundraiser. Mentally, speech and debate makes me feel well educated, and knowledge is considered a great gift for me, therefore putting time and effort into it was a great experience.
I made Whatchamacallits, and it was the first time I had tried making them without help from my mom, so it was definitely an adventure. I made several mistakes before just winging it out, but in the end, I wish I would’ve made more because we sold out of them quickly.
The event started with a sign up sheet being passed around the class that I signed. Following that, there was a single small pink poster made by junior Florence Knape hung up around the halls and I also helped pass around that to the debate classes for marketing.
Though Knape was the queen of the whole thing, as she was the one who came up with the idea, it’s not a surprise to me that she pulled it off either, since Knape is on the varsity team and is an extremely skilled speaker. It was motivational to me seeing Knape start this; one because she is a peer of mine, but two of how much I respect her. She inspired me to remember that all it takes is someone to say “let’s just do that,” instead of talking about it. Due to the excitement she encouraged, debaters—and bakers—showed up with dozens of sweet treats for our fundraiser.
Knape, seniors Ieva Stave, Meredith Gifford, junior Hattie LaPlant and other debaters—including me—set up all the treats for lunch time. Myself, Stave and Gifford headed down to the leadership room to grab paper for the bake sale signs. Gifford also grabbed blue pens from the library which we all used to write and color in the letters. LaPlant and I began bringing down treats from debate teacher Derek Heath’s room. It’s important to mention this because as we passed people they would ask what it was for and would show excitement after we mentioned the buyable treats part. 
When talking about the selection of treats, there were lots of lemon-flavored treats, such as lemon bars, cakes, shortbread and oat bars. We kept the tinier stuff on one side of the table and the bigger, cakes and such on the other side. Seeing this showed me how many people contributed to the bake sale and that made me ecstatic.
I think a favorite of mine was actually not made by a debate student, but instead staff member Santha Cassell. It was really important to me that she signed up to bake things, as I wasn’t expecting so many people to sign up. Cassell surprised me when she made magic cookie bars, and they were some of the best treats I have ever had. They were savory but sweet, a perfect balance, coconut and almonds. I’ve recently also become a bigger coconut fan, so for my fellow coconut lovers out there you or if you would like my homemade Whatchamacallit’s recipe: here’s the link! This shows that the event wasn’t only about funding, but also having some fun baking.
Another treat I loved were the lemon cakes made by seniors Sidrah and Anika Schramm. I took several pieces home with me, which my mother and I inhaled due to the deliciousness. My favorite type of sweets are lemon-flavored ones, especially in cake form. It reminded me of the lemon cake you can get at Starbucks, and I was very proud of everything everyone had made.
Speaking of proudness, seeing Heath’s big smile throughout the whole thing and hearing him tell everyone how delicious everyone’s treats were. An honorable thing to mention is Heath’s wife also being there, as I, along with many other debaters, had never met her. He seemed really excited to show her how much we had done on our own, and how much we had accomplished.
This emotion stayed the same even after me, Stave and Gifford began counting the money. We made over 400 dollars from the sale, which will be mainly used towards renting buses for tournaments. Which is one of the reasons I’m deeply thankful for everyone who showed up and helped us reach such a lofty goal. These funds will really help us given I know that myself and other debaters have had to either carpool or figure out means of transportation to competitions. This helps stretch our community with one another, but also helps us find some relief—given we already get stressed over preparing for tournaments.
Overall, I’m really looking forward to how we come up with more ways to fundraise for our program, and I know that whatever ways we do come up with, will be just as successful as this one. And if you don’t believe you can do it, perhaps you should just think, “let’s just do it.”
