Pandemic hobby leads to way to give back to community for Centre County teens
After picking up baking during the COVID-19 pandemic, Centre County teens Yunus Alptekinoglu and Omer Kurt found a way to use the hobby to help a community organization that has played a critical role in vaccine rollout.
During quarantine, the Alptekinoglu family began watching baking shows together, which inspired Yunus’ brother Selim to try his own hand at baking. One of his creations — gluten-free chocolate chip cookies — quickly became Yunus’ favorite.
And after family members suggested the cookies were so good they could be sold, Yunus, 17, and his friend Omer, 16, decided to host weekly cookie sales in the Centre Hills and Dalevue neighborhoods in State College.
The goal? Bake and sell enough cookies to donate $1,000 to Centre Volunteers in Medicine, which, fueled by volunteers, has hosted clinics since the COVID-19 vaccine became available.
“I think we’re very lucky that we’re in State College,” Omer said. “In other states, the COVID-19 virus is still very severe ... CVIM provided a lot of people with the vaccine, which helps a lot.”
In order to reach their goal, the duo dedicated every Friday to baking and selling cookies in Yunus’ neighborhood, starting in late June. They met and exceeded their goal five weeks later on July 23, raising $1,040.
They plan to deliver the funds Monday to CVIM, which provides a free medical and dental clinic to Centre County residents.
“Our hearts are warmed by the initiative of these two students who used their time and talents to raise funds to help us care for the underserved in our community,” CVIM Executive Director Cheryl White wrote in an email. “What a great example of how young people can be philanthropic too.”
Throughout the effort, the boys maintained a consistent schedule, Yunus’ mother Yasemin Alptekinoglu said.
Every Friday, Yunus and Omer met at 10 a.m. to start baking cookies. The boys baked for two or three hours, breaking for lunch. After baking the cookies, the boys would go to the temple for Friday prayer. After getting home, they set up a stand in front of Yunus’ house and sold cookies until about 7:30 p.m.
In the days leading up to each Friday, the boys would create and distribute flyers to advertise the sale.
But before any of that, they had to learn to bake cookies.
Omer said he has more experience with cooking rather than baking, and that before the project, he’d never baked cookies.
“I think that cooking is an art of itself,” he said. “It’s really hard.”
Yasemin was surprised by how committed the boys were to the sale. During their fourth week of selling cookies, she said, it started to thunderstorm. Instead of heading inside, Yasemin said the boys packed up their supplies and sold the cookies door to door.
“They wanted to sell them while they were fresh,” she said. “It was so funny to see them. They did it until they finished (selling) all the cookies.”
Yunus said he’s gotten to know the neighborhood community more through the sale, and had support from fellow local Turkish families who drove in from other neighborhoods to buy cookies.
Besides learning how to bake cookies, Yunus said the work has taught him more about the importance of giving back to the community — something integral to his Islamic faith, he said.
“Everybody knows we’re doing it for Centre Volunteers and Medicine,” Yunus said, “but (faith is) also a very important part of our life, so I think that adds even more motivation.”
Yasemin said that she’s watched the boys grow in perspective while working on the project.
“It shows a kind of maturity,” she said. “When they were younger, you know, it was hard for them to grasp this, to see how critical (charity work) is, that they have so many things that other people don’t have.”
And though the boys have met their fundraising goal, their work isn’t finished quite yet — the duo hopes to create a website to wrap up this project, in addition to planning to do other types of charity work in the future.
“We didn’t think we would have been this successful,” Yunus said.