For the third year in a row, students from JobTrain, a Menlo Park-based nonprofit that serves low-income San Mateo County residents, have baked thousands of cookies for inmates ranging in flavor from chocolate chip to peanut butter with jelly in the middle.
"Every kind that you can possibly imagine," said Lori Stone, director of development and marketing for JobTrain.
This morning, the cookies were picked up by members of the San Mateo County Service League, a nonprofit that coordinates services and activities within San Mateo County jails.
The league will package the cookies and deliver them to the inmates on Thursday. Each inmate will get 10 cookies, Stone said.
The mass baking began in 2008 when the jail, which Stone said provided cookies as gifts to the inmates each year, fell short.
They contacted JobTrain on Dec. 23 and asked if the nonprofit's culinary students could make 3,000 cookies in one day.
"One of those students was a former inmate and said, 'You know what? I got those cookies,'" Stone said. JobTrain came through.
In 2009, JobTrain students made 6,000 cookies. This year, they started in November and surpassed the 10,000 mark, Stone said.
Participants in the culinary program are both adults and high school students, who gain school credit and real-world experience that will help them get jobs that involve mass food production.
"Somebody can put on their resume, yes, they can put out 10,000 cookies," Stone said with a laugh.
There are currently 24 students in the culinary program, Stone said.
