In an effort both to raise money for their team and to serve the US Marine’s Toys for Tots program, varsity softball held a bake sale and an accompanying toy fundraiser outside the CPAC on December 6.
According to head coach Wayne Stephens, the bake sale was intended “to try to get awareness for the softball team.”
He added, “A lot of people don’t really understand what goes on with the softball team so we’re just trying to get the Campo brand out there.”
“We are also doing a Toys for Tots drive, so when people come in to buy cookies, if they have just like a book or something that they were donating in their car they can donate it here,” said junior Grace Deskin. “If they were planning on donating something they can buy cookies or a baked good.”
“We are having fun. We’re playing Christmas music and it supports Campo,” added junior Lauren Eberhardt, who brought homemade chocolate dipped pretzels and orange bread to the bake sale.
The bake sale offered a variety of baked goods, according to Deskin. “We have snickerdoodles, made by yours truly. We have blondes. We have homemade marshmallows. We have rice crispie treats. We have Louisiana style butter squares, which are fantastic. We have a lot of stuff and it’s going really swell,” she said.
Almost every softball player brought food to the bake sale, many undeterred by lack of culinary skill. “I brought pumpkin bread that I just made and it was a disaster because I’ve never made pumpkin bread before, or like anything because I’m a horrible baker,” said freshman Elena Koshkin.
Buyers be ware: “I didn’t taste it, but I think it turned out okay,” Koshkin admitted.
Koshkin believes that her dedication to the bake sale, in spite of some unforeseen hardships, exhibits the perseverance of her team as a whole. “This morning I realized that I had no butter in my house and yesterday when I made my practice trial at baking and I tried to make cookies I used up all the sunflower oil instead of butter, so this morning I didn’t have any oil except olive oil, so then I had to go to the store and get vegetable oil. It’s really expensive. It’s like 6 dollars,” she said.
“The bread, after like 60 minutes, it was still raw, so my mom had to put it back in so I’m pretty sure the pumpkin bread is really bad,” Koshkin added. “There was some tart cherries in them. My mom told me that one time she tried them from that exact trail mix and there was seeds in them, so they’ll have to buy it at their own risk, if anyone comes.”
Sophomore Sydni Gordon brought homemade marshmallows, as well as cookies made by her mother’s friend. “What you do is you get gelatin and you put 3 packets in a half cup of cold water. You put the other half of water into a pan and then you put in corn syrup and sugar,” she said.
Gordon also brought “Nerf [toys], pajamas, some board games” for the toy drive. “My mom’s friends at work, they brought them, or they gave them to me,” she explained.
According to Deskin, in previous years the team has raised money by selling food at an event they called the Jamboree. “We have different coaches this year and they weren’t really sure how they would organize something like that, so we thought a bake sale would be a good idea,” she explained.
Having executed fundraising bake sales with teams he has formerly coached, Stephens believes the event is a chance to involve his team with their community. “We’ll do other fundraisers too but this is something that actually came by one of the other coaches. Coach John actually came up with the idea and the girls thought it would be a great idea so we let them run with it,” said Stephens.
“I think this a good way to start it and I think that this is a very good idea and I think that there will be other things that we’re going to be doing. They might be more successful but it just depends; I think that not a lot of people know about it but so far we’ve been doing pretty well,” Freshman Abby Morris said.
“I think the other idea [Jamboree] would be better but this idea is more fun. I feel like it’s more old-fashioned, it’s kinda cute. It reminds me of Girl Scouts for some reason,” said Koshkin.
KNTV Radio made an announcement for the bake sale, according to coach John Fondnazio. “We went door knocking around the neighborhood and we got the Lamorinda Patch; we advertised at the tree lighting the other night, and then through social media,” Fondnazio said.
The softball team struggles to compete with the publicity of other sports on campus, said Eberhardt. “We made posters and put them up at school on Monday at lunch but there weren’t any announcements by the school,” she said. “I understand that since it is the last football game the focus is on that but there wasn’t anything in the bulletin or anything about our softball team at all, so I don’t know if they know it exists.”
Players stood along the side of the street and waved signs at passing cars in an effort to draw customers. “Most people respond to smiling; I know because I would. I should go into marketing,” said Koshkin.
“Honestly it looks like we’ve had a lot of good sales but I’m not sure what we’ve got. We’ve had a good turnout, we’d like to see a few more,” said Stephens.
As for the toy drive, Stephens has not “really paid attention to what’s been dropped off,” but said that the toys he has seen “have actually been great toys and its been great for the community to come out and support us.”
“The fire department will be coming to pick them up today and they’ll be using it for the toys for tots drive that they do,” he said. “Both boxes are almost full so that’s a good thing.”
Even if the team does not raise enough money to buy new equipment and uniforms, sophomore Nia Harper believes that the event brought awareness to Campo softball. “We can reach out to the community and have them help us out. If we need to we can always have the parents help out,” she said.
