Students bake cookies Tuesday in preparation for a bake sale Thursday, Feb. 29. Credit: Lee Klafczynski / Mirror Indy 
The cafeteria at Circle City Prep. Credit: Lee Klafczynski/Mirror Indy 
Culinary club fifth graders Ishaluv Dotson (left) and Bryana Perdomo laugh while baking. Credit: Lee Klafczynski / Mirror Indy 
A culinary club student measures ingredients. Credit: Lee Klafczynski / Mirror Indy 
Students bake cookies with help from their club leader, Crystal. Credit: Lee Klafczynski / Mirror Indy 
Students mix chocolate chip cookie dough. Credit: Lee Klafczynski / Mirror Indy 
Chef Shannon Mitchell, culinary director of the Patachou Foundation, assists students in baking. Credit: Lee Klafczynski / Mirror Indy 
Culinary club student Ishaluv Dotson enjoys a freshly baked cookie. Credit: Lee Klafczynski / Mirror Indy 
A student lines a baking sheet with cookie dough. Credit: Lee Klafczynski / Mirror Indy 
A Circle City Prep student enjoys leftover cookie dough. Credit: Lee Klafczynski / Mirror Indy
Ishaluv Dotson wants to be a chef when she grows up. Or a pediatrician. Or maybe a firefighter or a police officer or a math teacher.
The Circle City Prep fifth grader is still figuring that part out, but she knows she likes cooking. She’s seen it up close in the restaurant where her father works and she’s tried her own recipes at home.
So, when Dotson found out about the culinary club at her northeastside school, she just knew she had to join.
“When me and my mom first heard about culinary (club), we were both like, ‘This is perfect,’” Dotson said, “Because I always ask, ‘Can we cook this? Can we cook that?’”
That’s the kind of excitement organizers say they hope to spark in the afterschool club, which provides an outlet for students to hang out outside of class and learn simple recipes they can make at home. This month, the club is connecting its baking into the school’s annual Black History Month celebration.
Students will sell the cookies, brownies and cupcakes they’ve baked at Circle City Prep’s “Black Excellence Through the Decades” performance on Thursday, Feb. 29. Doors open at 5 p.m., and the performance starts at 5:30 p.m. Baked goods will be available for purchase before and after the show, and proceeds from the sale will support club expenses for the next year.
“This is basically to teach them that they can be entrepreneurs or own their own businesses or provide for their families, if they would like to,” said Crystal Prell, a culinary club leader and parent who works in the school’s kitchen.
It’s an idea inspired by Black entrepreneurship exemplified during the Civil Rights Movement.
Two weeks ago, David Bell, a Warren Central graduate and wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, visited the club to read the book “Pies from Nowhere: How Georgia Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott.”
The book tells the story of Georgia Gilmore, an Alabama cook who organized women in her community to prepare and sell sandwiches, pies and other baked goods to help fund alternative transportation for families during the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott.
Chef Shannon Mitchell, culinary director of the Patachou Foundation, helped the club pick the activity during Black History Month. She said she wanted students’ experiences this month to go further than other efforts that might rely on simply cooking soul food as an expression of Black culture. She said she wanted students to also learn about African Americans’ legacy of self-reliance, problem-solving and entrepreneurship.
“Georgia was able to benefit her community, to use her talents to help her community,” Mitchell said. “That’s the lesson: to be able to see a need and to be able to solve a problem, to be able to employ our own talents to our own ends.”
The Patachou Foundation provides support for scratch-made school meal services at Circle City Prep through its PataSchool initiative. The nonprofit also recently helped the school redesign its kitchen and cafeteria, adding a food lab space for students to use in classes or after school.
That’s where students met this week to prepare for the bake sale. They’ve set out to make 100 cookies, 100 brownies and 50 cupcakes for the event Thursday night. Fifth grader Bryana Perdomo said she felt inspired by Georgia Gilmore’s story.
“A small hobby can turn into, like, a big business,” Perdomo said.
Dotson, her classmate, said she’s looking forward to the bake sale. She said she’s not nervous to share her food with others and that it’s something she hopes to carry with her throughout life, no matter what career she chooses.
“If there’s a lot of people, that’s going to make me feel good,” Dotson said, “That means we cook good and that people can tell that we actually try.”
Start your own bake sale
Want to start your own bake sale or learn about Georgia Gilmore at home?
Consider shopping at your local bookstore or visiting Bookshop.org to find your own copy of “Pies from Nowhere: How Georgia Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott.” You can also find a free, read-aloud version of the story on YouTube.
Set aside about 10 minutes for reading. Then head to the kitchen with the Patachou Foundation’s recipe for chocolate chip cookies. This recipe makes 18 cookies, but it can easily be scaled up for larger groups.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need:
- 1 cup butter, softened
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 eggs (room temperature)
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup milk chocolate chips
Ready to bake? Here are your instructions:
- Gather your ingredients, making sure your butter is softened and your eggs are room temperature.
- Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Cream butter, white sugar and brown sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. This can also be done by hand.
- Add in eggs, one at a time. Then stir in vanilla.
- Stir in flour. Then add in chocolate chips. Mix until all are incorporated.
- Use a 3-ounce scoop to portion dough balls 2 inches apart onto ungreased, parchment-lined baking sheets. Press to slightly flatten.
- Bake in the pre-heated oven until edges are nicely browned, about 15 to 18 minutes.
- Cool on the baking sheets briefly before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container or serve immediately and enjoy.
Mirror Indy reporter Carley Lanich covers early childhood and K-12 education. Contact her at carley.lanich@mirrorindy.org or follow her on X @carleylanich.
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