Slippery Rock elementary students bake for One Day to Remember
SLIPPERY ROCK — Eighth-grade students at Slippery Rock Elementary School baked for an entire day to prepare 45 dozen cookies as part of a fundraiser for a Pittsburgh area nonprofit that in 2019 helped a family from the school district.
Jaime Armstrong, a fourth-grade teacher at Slippery Rock Elementary School, said she started the fundraiser because of her connection to the Geist family, which was helped by One Day to Remember when Jason Geist was going through cancer treatments. One Day to remember provides a curated experience individualized for each family with a parent going through cancer treatment.
After passing out papers about the fundraiser on Halloween, interested students began baking Nov. 10.
“We did it all at the middle school,” Armstrong said. “We had eight eighth graders and 10 fourth graders helping out.”
Armstrong presented the money to One Day to Remember on Nov. 20 at Slippery Rock Elementary School, alongside Geist’s widow, Melissa Geist, and her children. Rachel Antin, founder and executive director of One Day to Remember, said the money the school district raised will cover one family’s outing with the organization.
“This is super helpful and meaningful that the kids here want to give back,” Antin said. “To have someone who went through it give back, we’re very thankful and it means a lot.”
Antin also said the Geist family inspired a recent addition to the One Day to Remember experience — Jason’s Journal. Now, each member of a family who is helped by the organization receives a journal where they can write about their day out and their loved one, which is what some of the Geists did when they had their day to remember.
Melissa Geist said she was happy to be part of the check presentation because One Day to Remember provided a great day of activity before her husband died in 2019.
“They picked us up in a limo and took us to the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium,” Geist said. “The girls went to a father-daughter dance with their dad.”
