Photo Courtesy of Julia Reis

Members of the Baking Brigade club decorated a cake together during a club meeting before Winter Break.

Since branching out of the Culinary Connections last April, the Baking Brigade has become a fast growing club. Founded by seniors Julia Reis and Ellie Paulino, the Baking Brigade is a space for members to spend their Wednesday afternoons carefully collecting ingredients, cracking eggs, and preparing goods that are often donated to those in need.

Initially, it proved difficult to establish a separate identity from Culinary Connections during the club application process, according to Julia. Culinary Connections is a cooking-based club that explores recipes from different cuisines. Unlike Culinary Connections, Baking Brigade focuses on baking sweet treats and donating their homemade goods to churches and the homeless. Their meetings often involve making goods such as s’mores and cake pops.

Julia said her motivation to create the independent club was to make community service more personal and meaningful in the form of homemade treats. In comparison to Culinary Connections, Julia said the idea of the club was more centered around baking “so we could give out baked goods to people with the volunteer aspect of it.”

When they were still a part of the larger club, Baking Brigade remained stagnant at around 20 members. Though this smaller community was much easily supported by smaller fundraisers, it did not last forever.

After becoming an independent club, an unexpected increase in membership required quick thinking by the club board and new means of gathering funds.

“We had to install a membership fee of $7 for our regular meetings, which are non-volunteer meetings, so you don’t get hours for those,” Julia said.

The board members believed that implementing a membership fee would be a risky change, but the members of the club contributed with no hesitation.

“We thought that more than half the people in our club were gonna leave because they didn’t want to pay,” Julia said. ”Despite this, when people willing to pay were asked to raise their hands, almost the whole room lifted up their hands… And for me, that was really special.”

Freshman Jaylinn Contin, who is a club member, said that the Baking Brigade offers a more relaxed environment than most extracurriculars. Now she “burns less food.”  Jaylinn also said the club “feels like it’s less competitive compared to all the other clubs.” For many members, the club forms a safe space to learn without the competition and stress that many students undergo.

Similarly, sophomore Arzoo-A Shah said that although she was “initially scared of joining the club because I didn’t know anyone in the club” joining has given her the opportunity to “make new friends and bond with new people.”

Math teacher Sara Liu, the club’s new advisor, described her decision to join the club. When she first walked past the room, the club was hosting a butter-making event without an advisor. “It was very, very interesting. The students were very engaged and it looked fun and everything,” Ms. Liu said. Seeing this collaboration between students, she took up Julia’s offer, becoming a core part within the growing community.

As a consistently expanding group, Baking Brigade continues to bring together students of all skill levels and working speeds under the common goal to spread love through food. Their club aims to teach members the basics of baking while giving back to the community.