JOI Club Cookie Baking

November 03, 2022

Pictured here are JOI members that were able to help with the Treat the Troops project.

Getting the cookie dough to the cookie sheet is the first step. Jnelle Keysor mans the oven throughout the process.

Next step is removing from cookie sheet to cool.

The last step is bagging six cookies each into a sandwich bag, stacking them carefully to prevent breakage.

Letters from students have also been written to the troops this year, and these members put one letter and a return address label into each envelope.

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Pictured here are JOI members that were able to help with the Treat the Troops project.

Treynor High School Junior Optimist International (JOI) Club held their annual cookie baking event yesterday in the high school kitchen. Almost half of the 64 members were able to help bake and wrap over 1,200 sugar cookies that will be sent to armed forces overseas. This year, several classes wrote letters or made drawings to send with the care packages, with return address labels added to each envelope in the event that the solider can write back to the class. The groups was under the direction of former Food Service Director, Jnelle Keysor and adult JOI Club advisor, Shelly Bailey. This is an annual project for the Junior Optimists and one they particularly enjoy. 

Their cookies are part of a much larger project called Iowa Cookie Crumbs that is run by Abbie Crawford and Deann Over out of Council Bluffs. The cookie effort here utilizes bakers and groups in Iowa and Nebraska to send these tokens of appreciation to our soldiers, airmen, and sailors around the world.   

The Treynor Junior Optimist Club meets on the first Wednesday of each month to conduct official business. The planned projects for this year have or will include helping with the community Trunk or Treat in October, cookie baking in November as well as helping with the community Christmas event by JTW, tie blankets to Children's Hospital and New Visions, toy drive in December, "Souper Bowl" food drive in February, Midlands Humane Society toy making, tree mulching/planting in April and other various community projects that come up throughout the year. 

This year's club is led by President Haley Nowlin, Vice President Amelia Hedrick, Secretary Cadence Quick and Treasurer Addy Schnepel. 

Click on the photo slideshow to the right to view a few pictures from the project.