Derwood teen to sell baked goods to help end child hunger
Jackie Price has been baking for as long as she can remember.
The 14-year-old Derwood resident is an aspiring chef who uses her love for cooking to help others.
Price, a freshman at Col. Zadok Magruder High School, will hold her second "Great Rockville Bake Sale" at the annual Hometown Holidays celebration in Rockville Town Center this weekend to raise money for Share Our Strength, a national organization that tries to help end child hunger.
"Something about it just makes me feel so good and really doing something to make a difference to other people," Price said. "Just like baking cupcakes or baking cookies, spending a few hours of my time on the weekend to help save other children's lives, it really touches me."
Last year, Price held her first Great Rockville Bake Sale as part of Share Our Strength's national Great American Bake Sale campaign to support local food programs. She was watching the Food Network when she saw an advertisement for the campaign and decided to host her own bake sale.
"I've been helping out with bake sales in my neighborhood or at school for as long as I can remember, so to host one to help end child hunger … is a really big thing for me," Price said.
This year she is baking more than 800 cupcakes, more than 500 chocolate chip cookies and dozens of brownies and Rice Krispy treats. The cupcakes and cookies-on-a-stick are her best-sellers, she said.
Her fundraising goal this year is about $3,500, double what she raised last year.
Price raised more than $1,700 last year, including a $500 grant from the City of Rockville, a prize for winning the best decorated nonprofit booth.
Her award-winning booth was "all-out red, white and blue," decked out in American flags and all the way down to the red, white and blue sprinkles on the cookies. She said she plans to do the same this year.
Price is also in the process of making a cupcake costume and is still trying to decide who will wear it.
"I'm gonna see if I can get my brother to do it, but I'm not sure," she said.
While May has become her busiest baking month, Price rarely puts down her oven mitts all year long. Every month she and her mother participate in Treat the Troops, an organization that sends home-baked goods to soldiers deployed overseas. Price has sent cookies to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan every month, except May, for the last two years.
"I really love just helping out other people," Price said.