Campers help feed hungry

BASE camp kids donated 500 cookies to Trenton Area Soup Kitchen

By: Paul Koepp
   Kids at the school district’s Community Education BASE Camp summer program are providing the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen with some sweet treats.
   Families of BASE campers purchase or bake the cookies, and the kids bring them to camp and wrap them in individual sandwich bags, according to Sheila Barry, of the district’s Community Education department. She then takes them to Trenton, where she lives, about once a week.
   "People always give household foods. They don’t think to give treats," Ms. Barry said. "The cookies are very well-loved at TASK."
   Ann Orth, volunteer director for TASK, said the soup kitchen received about 500 cookies from the BASE campers last week. She said the program is a good way to get kids involved who are too young to volunteer other ways, she said.
   "Most of the cookies are home-baked, so they’re really good," she said. "They’re hard to resist."
   Ms. Barry said she ran a similar event with the district’s before-school and after-school programs in March. That drive brought in more than 17,000 and was very successful because it was set up as a competition between schools, she said.
   The BASE Camp "leaders in training," are in charge of the summer cookie drive. The 17th annual BASE Camp, which has 192 campers in first through fifth grade this year, started June 25 and ends Aug. 17.