Being born into a family of individuals who don’t mind jumping into the kitchen and cooking up a tasty meal, it’s no surprise that English teacher Kelly Gionti found comfort in the same atmosphere.    

Ever since Gionti became a teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. High School back in 2003, she has been baking cookies for her students.

“I’ve always been interested in baking. I used to make bake when I was younger with my mom and brother and they were always sugar cookies,” which is usually what Gionti brings to her class. “But over the past two years it has picked up more.”

Some of the sugar cookies that Gionti has made were snow flakes for Christmas, pumpkins for Halloween and even teddy bears holding hearts for Valentine’s Day.

“Ms. Gionti’s cookies are always pretty and sugary,” said senior Essence Meek. “I always like her decorations.”

Some of Gionti’s students have gone to extremes for her homemade sugar cookies.
One of her past students by the name of Richard Williams would go into a frenzy she said. “He would beg and cry. One day he made a sign that read ‘I will work for cookies,’ taped it onto his shirt, and wore it all day.”

“It was nice that she brought us cookies,” said Wilmer Cueva, one of Gionti’s former students. “I didn’t even expect it.”

Besides sharing her brilliant treats with the classroom, she also shares them with her family members and her husband, who acts as her official taste tester.

“My family eats them a lot. I even send them to family members as gifts for the holidays,” said Gionti.

For Christmas, Gionti made about 1000 cookies of different flavors like peanut butter, chocolate chip, sugar and even oatmeal. Her brother laughed at all the cookies she baked, so on Christmas he decided to buy her a book called Cake Pops by Bakerella to challenge her.

By this time, Gionti already knew about the author and had her eye on the book. “I think he found it a little funny that I already knew about the book. I just hadn’t gotten around to buying it with my own money yet,” joked Gionti.

Gionti gets her inspiration from individuals like Bakerella and Sweet Sugar Belle. She follows their blogs and even some recipes, like cake pops, which are cake and frosting combined treats rolled into a small ball dipped in chocolate, which can be decorated how ever you decide.

In her family, there is always talk about owning a restaurant or a business, so of course her attraction to baking and those family thoughts were bound to link eventually.

Gionti has even considered taking her baking to the next level. “It’s fun to decorate and bake cookies, but it is also a lot of time and money. I do it for the creativity and excitement and to see if they come out exactly how I want them to,” she said. “It’s kind of an outlet. I also love literature and being a teacher, so I hope to merge the two. Maybe I can open a business and with what comes in, give back to the classroom.”

She even thought of some company names. Some of them were taken and others just didn’t fit, but the one that stuck was Cookies for Class, for which she brought the website rights.
Gionti shows much ambition as both a teacher and future business woman but both for the bettering of the classroom.

“I like Ms. Gionti as a person and teacher. If she had a bakery I would probably go  every other week,” said senior Kameel Williams who is currently a student in Gionti’s AP English class.

If everything takes shape and positions well, hopefully she can give back to the future students who will enter the classroom.