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Miami Palmetto High School senior Allison Gould sells a dozen chocolate chip cookies for $20 and donates all the profits to local organizations, including Health in the Hood, Food Rescue Miami and Breakthrough Miami.
Her organization is called The Bake Sale 305. The first three sales raised more than $6,000.
“Typically, we have a couple of weeks where we take orders and five or six days where I deliver around Miami. And we ship them out of state,” she says.
The next sale will run from Thanksgiving to Dec. 20.
She started The Bake Sale 305 her sophomore year when the COVID numbers were bad. She says it was a spur of the moment decision.
“I do this with my brother (Scott),” she says. “At the beginning of the (last) school year, we talked about when we could bake cookies. We decided around the holidays and the end of the year. We both play spring sports. And my mom helps out. We do it in our own kitchen and we bake them from scratch.”
Gould says their cookies are unique.
“Nobody bakes them like we do. My brother perfected the recipe during quarantine,” she says.
One of the baking secrets is to finish the cookies with a little sea salt.
“It gives the cookies a little bit of saltiness and sweetness,” Gould says. “It makes them a showstopper and makes people want to eat more.”
She takes orders at school and via Instagram, using the handle @TheBakeSale305. Last year, during the holidays, they were able to display the cookies at an event put on by the Pinecrest City Music Project. They sold cookies at the event and also took orders.
Gould’s community service includes Math Wizards, a project she started that involved tutoring math at Pinecrest Elementary School. She went every week after school to teach third to fifth graders. Just after expanding to Coral Reef Elementary School, the project was shut down because of the COVID lockdown in 2020 and has not been able to resume.
This year Gould is captain of the Palmetto lacrosse team. She’s been on the team since freshman year.
“I focus on lacrosse. It makes me happy to step on the field every spring,” she says.
Losing the sophomore season to COVID was hard so she was happy they played a full season last year and made it to the district semi-finals.
“We showed so much improvement,” she says. “We were able to bond as a team. I think it made everyone’s year a little more special.”
This year Gould is the print editor-in-chief of the Panther, the school newspaper. She oversees the print cycles and issues of the paper.
Gould is president of the Social Science Honor Society and has participated in History Bowl.
She’s secretary of Interact and has been the Head of PTSA/EESAC Liaisons in the Student Senate for two years. She’s a member of the National Honor Society, the Jewish Student Union and the Spanish National Honor Society.
Outside of school, she’s dedicated to her Jewish identity. She’s a member of the Social Justice Teen Initiative with Temple Beth Am.
She’s also part of Leaders for Tomorrow with the American Jewish Committee. She was confirmed two years ago and received the Irwin Lesser Outstanding Confirmation award.
While she loves journalism, she has other plans for her future.
“I do love speaking to people and helping people through advocacy, or through politics,” she says.
She’s applying to the University of Michigan, Harvard University, the University of Florida, Northwestern University, the University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
