MERS Students Launch Collaborative Fundraising Cookbook

MANALAPAN, NJ -Since 2010, the Foundation for Manalapan-Englishtown Regional Schools (MERS) has raised $800,000 back to the school district for costly programs that benefit the educational enrichment of students. But after a slew of in-person fundraising events were met with mandatory cancellations amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the foundation began searching for creative and virtual ways to generate additional funding.

“When COVID-19 hit, all of our fundraising and events came to a halt," said Loren Scheck, a retired teacher and current fundraising chair for the Foundation For MERS. "Since people were home and not going anywhere, I thought it would be an ideal time to have people engage in an activity that is family-oriented that people could bond over.”

The result of the combined effort between Manalapan-Englishtown parents, staff and foundation members is a collaborative cookbook - dubbed "MERS Kids In The Kitchen" - that the entire community contributed to.

Scheck reports that the foundation advertised the initiative heavily on social media, as well as asking students for artwork and recipes to submit to the collaboration. After Wemrock Brook Elementary School Principal Rebecca Seery suggested a districtwide contest to see which school could get the most amount of participants to donate a recipe, the fundraising chair recalls seeing dozens more submissions quickly added to the effort:

"People gobbled it up. The enthusiasm was contagious: teachers submitted recipes, that’s what it was about. The community coming together and sharing a love for something," Sheck said. "People treasure cookbooks - I’ve had one forever, this little bound book. It is a fundraiser but ... it was also a community collaboration. It’s something that we can all enjoy, even when we’re physically apart."

One Manalapan resident even offered a free gift from his new company, 100 Pleats, to the winning school. The business will give the grand prize recipients from Wemrock Brook School a virtual cooking class geared towards children and families.

"At the end, we had 293 recipes that were submitted from children K-8. We had a little boy submit 29 recipes which was adorable. We did host a cover contest where there were a dozen children that gave art contributions. Our board went through the different illustrations and we did pick a winner, her artwork is incredible.”

The recipient of the prestigious front cover honor was seventh grader Abby Herman from Manalapan-Englishtown Middle School. Her illustrations are accompanied by several other young artists via submissions found on the interior cover pages of the cookbook.

(Loren Scheck/used with permission)

“Whoever submitted any artwork has a piece in the book," Scheck said. "People have photographs that went with their recipes, that’s in the book. It was a bonding activity that I think was at the perfect time, and we’re delivering it in time for the holidays.”

Requests for additional cookbooks can be made via email to MERSKidsInTheKitchen@foundation4mers.org.

For more information about the Foundation for MERS, click here.