Today at school, the kindergarteners worked on baking bread (in between their mathematics and reading). They do this on most Fridays, and older kids at the school still talk fondly about when they were a kindergartener and baked bread when they smell the delicious aroma wafting through the school halls.

Today, they baked bread for a purpose. The school nurse, Madeline, travels to Malawi, Africa fairly often and volunteers in a medical clinic when she's there. She visited the nearby school during one of her visits and when she returned, a friendship began between that African School and Chugach Optional.

In past years, the kids have raised enough money to purchase latrines for the school or to add on additional classroom space. Madeline returns in January and different classes have been doing different fundraisers to raise money for the nurse to take with her. The idea was to get the kids involved, not just the parents, so that the kids would feel the joy of helping others.

The kindergarteners baked their bread today and had a bread sale with proceeds going to the Malawi project. I stayed to help the kids knead the bread this morning and returned early to help with the sales. The kids had different jobs -- some took the money, others handed out the bread, and others restocked the plates as the bread quickly disappeared. Don't know how much they raised, but the bread was sold out. I'll post pictures after another mom sends the ones she took. Very cool.