First-Ever Pi-E Day Celebration Raises $1,500 as Several Hundred Turn Out to Celebrate Food & Math
By Laryssa Wirstiuk • Mar 14th, 2011 • Category: Featured, Food
To view larger, click on photos for slideshow
Does your mouth water at the sight of a fresh-from-the-oven, lattice-crusted apple pie? Or do you prefer pillowy lemon meringue? Either way, as you bite into that sweet filling and buttery crust, you’re probably not thinking about mathematics.
However, at the Learning Community Charter School (LCCS) this weekend, about 200 people gathered to celebrate pi — everyone’s favorite mathematical constant — by eating pie and participating in a pie-eating contest, a pie walk and math games.
Children and adults alike descended on the LCCS auditorium on the eve of Pi Day (March 14th to honor 3.14) for the 1st Annual Jersey City Pi-E Day Celebration. Both amateur and professional bakers could enter a homemade pie in up to two of five categories: apple, nut/cream/custard, pumpkin or sweet potato, other fruit, and kid-tested/parent-approved.
Entrants were not allowed to use store-bought pastry shells or fillings and had to produce two nine-inch pies: one for the judges and one for sale. Criteria for judging included taste and texture, appearance, crust, and creativity.
I had the opportunity to judge the pumpkin/sweet potato pies, which are definitely my favorite. This category had three entries: a very traditional pumpkin pie with a buttery crust, another pumpkin pie with more of a cracker crust and the word “PIE” emblazoned on top, and pumpkin whoopie pies arranged in a pie dish to resemble one large pie.
The pumpkin whoopie pies charmed the judges and won this category by a landslide. Shaped like little baseballs, the cake part of the whoopie pie was chewy and toothsome, like the cake of Drake’s Devil Dogs. In between the two sides of cake was a cream cheese icing that tasted like traditional pumpkin pie filling.
Sassy Sweet Treats, which sells its baked goods to Jersey City businesses like Lamp Post Bar and Grill and the Stockinette Knitting Café, is responsible for baking this addictive and very creative treat.
Gabby Creery and Lissa Welles, whose children attend LCCS, spent two months planning the event, which was born from a Facebook chat conversation about fundraising ideas.
“We went all over town,” Creery says. “We went door-to-door to many restaurants to find bakers who might be willing to participate.”
The day was a huge success, they say, bringing in more than twice their goal by raising $1,500 (they also received 60 cans of food for St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, which runs the food pantry for the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation).
“We are constantly doing fundraisers,” Creery says of the school, which currently has more than 450 students in grades K through 8. “Charter schools are notoriously under budget. All the parents pitch in and help raise money.”
THE WINNERS
APPLE:
Blue Ribbon 1st Place: Rebecca Segal
2nd Place: Ann Wallace
Honorable Mention: Alma Malabanan McGrath
NUT/CREAM/CUSTARD:
Blue Ribbon 1st Place: Peg Pisani/chocolate cream pie
2nd Place: Tami Resch/Bourbon Pecan
OTHER FRUIT:
Blue Ribbon 1st Place: Marco Runanin/Lemon Chiffon
2nd Place: Lissa Welles/Surprise Lemon
PUMPKIN/SWEET POTATO:
Blue Ribbon 1st Place: Sassy Sweet Treats
2nd Place: Lissa Welles
CHILD FRIENDLY/KID TESTED:
Blue Ribbon: Caitlin Malmad/Mud Pie
2nd Place:Tami Resch/Peanut Butter Mousse Pie
Honorable Mention: Jordan & Jodi Giani: Pumpkin Pie
Honorable Mention: Gabriella Welles: Raspberry Pie
Like what you've read here? Please consider making a donation or becoming a sustaining member. As a grassroots news organization, we rely on community support -- as well as paid advertising -- to survive.
Laryssa Wirstiuk is a writer who teaches creative writing at Rutgers University. Born and raised in the suburbs of northern New Jersey, Laryssa moved to Jersey City because she was curious about the city where her mother was raised. You can check out Comma 'n Sentence, Laryssa's blog about writing, teaching, and life, here: www.commansentence.com.
Email this author | All posts by Laryssa Wirstiuk
