How Chocolate Chip Cookies, Cancer, and Stampin' Up! all intersect ...

We were talking in my ethics class yesterday about volunteer organizations, evolving from a case study we had read about the American Red Cross and social responsibility. In that conversation, one of my students piped up with a certain knowledge: being a volunteer coordinator could be really difficult, because volunteers, by their nature, don't have to follow through unless they want to.

How did she know? Because she was coordinating volunteer bakers for a bake sale her Relay 4 Life team was holding in preparation for the campus wide Relay 4 Life fundraiser for cancer research, and several had backed out on her.

She needed chocolate chip cookies.

I asked her to see me after class. I am, as my family knows, a champion chocolate chip cookie baker. And I firmly support cancer research; my grandma Elsie died of cancer and its complications, as have other relatives. Baking chocolate chip cookies? An easy way for me to help.

So I spent my evening yesterday baking chocolate chip cookies, alternating pans through my old gas oven while simultaneously playing with stamps at my kitchen table. (I finally got my starter kit, and I'm in LOVE with the Stampin' Pastels and blender pens. Seriously a must-buy. Seriously.)

I brought my student six dozen cookies this morning. When she stopped to pick them up, she offered me, on her team's behalf, a luminaria or a label for a luminaria to be displayed at the event. "Have you lost someone to cancer?" she asked. "Because if you want, we'll give you a luminaria."

A luminaria is basically a white lunch-sized bag into which glow sticks will be placed, surrounding the track in the big field house on which team members will take turns walking, honoring those we've all lost to cancer. Each bag represents another soul lost. Many decorate their bags with their relative's name and other things.

I was touched by her offer, and I accepted. In my bag to take home with me tonight, I have a luminaria that I'll stamp on behalf of Elsie, with her own Stampin' Up! personalized stamp, still in my things. I'll probably add a butterfly, because she helped to give me wings.

And I'll take a picture for you.

If you're in Mankato April 18, stop by the campus fieldhouse to see the luminaria displays. It's a moving experience.

And if you need chocolate chip cookies for a bake sale, I'm your girl.