Worcester Prep bread sale raises much more than dough

Worcester Preparatory School teacher Jackie Knowlton and her students hosted the annual second-grade bread sale as part of a hands-on learning lesson combining English, science, mathematics, philanthropy and social studies.

The project is modeled like a small business, with the young entrepreneurs baking bread, selling it to Lower School students in a café and donating the proceeds to charity. The project involved researching ingredients, creating posters, presenting oral reports, and rotating jobs – from baker to cashier – to learn all the facets of running a business. This year, the class partnered with Bad Monkey West in Ocean City, Md., where they learned how to make and bake the bread.

At the end of the sale, the students counted the money they made, totaling $773.36, and divided the proceeds evenly to donate to two charitable causes, Atlantic General Hospital, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to help find a cure for their classmate Keller Hoch, who suffers from the genetic disease.