Top baking education awards were presented at the 2024 Home Baking Association Annual Membership Meeting in Delray Beach, Florida. “The Home Baking Association (HBA) annually recognizes a top educator and youth each year” according to Christine Kirby, Executive Director. “The non-profit association seeks to reward educators who have implemented outstanding programs that teach youth to bake incorporating STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture/Art, Math). The youth award recognizes an outstanding youth that bakes and gives back to their communities.
Melinda Keenan, family and consumer sciences educator, Newnan, GA received the 2024 HBA Educator Award with Nutrient Rich Baking: Incorporating the 6 Essential Nutrients. Keenan wanted her students to understand what the 6 essential nutrients were, differences in wheat flours and how they can be incorporated into a healthy tasty muffin. Melinda used different teaching methods to engage her students. Keenan is now teaching family & consumer sciences at her alma mater high school, East Coweta High School in Sharpsburg, GA where she honed her love for baking that began at a young age.
Noah Rabinowitz, a 16-year-old junior in high school from Dix Hills, New York received the Bake to Give Maddie Kruse Youth Award. Noah received the award for his Noah’s Community Cakes project. After volunteering at his local soup kitchen, Noah saw the need to add desserts to the offerings through his love of baking. He gathered his birthday money and started baking cakes each week and has now added baking mini cakes for each person to take with them for the holidays. He has baked over 600 cakes with a goal of 1,000 cakes by the end of this school year and recently increased his goal to 1,500 cakes before he graduates.
The Home Baking Association, ADM and the Kruse Family Foundation partnered to establish the youth award to bring attention to youth bakers who are actively making a difference in their communities. The top entries also receive $150 courtesy of Lesaffre to support their community baking project. The award aims to inspire youth to make a difference with the HBA Bake to Give Maddie Kruse Youth Award.
The Home Baking Association and North Dakota Mill partnered to award the top Educator that brings baking to their students in the classroom in schools, cooperative extension, after school programs, camps or homes. Keenan’s lesson will be incorporated into an online lesson that will be available at www.homebaking.org later in the year.
Keenan and Rabinowitz each received $1,000 and a trip to the HBA Annual Membership Meeting in Delray Beach, FL. They presented their winning programs and met with Home Baking Association members & partners.
The Home Baking Association has celebrated a milestone recognizing 100 years of baking education which began in 1923 with the Soft Wheat Millers Association initiating a baking education program. Twenty-eight member companies and associations provide funding to support baking education across the nation. www.homebaking.org
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