Geordie’s making a difference, one goodie at a time

Times Reporter

 

Many of us follow the natural progression of life. Go to school, graduate high school, find a job or move on to college or university. An adult with a disability doesn’t usually step into post-secondary school life, and while stereotypes are lifting and things are constantly changing there aren’t really a lot of job options either. 

Geordie Praeker, an adult with a disability, graduated from Holy Cross Collegiate last year. Chuck Bayley worked with Praeker for a few years in high school. Bayley jokes that when Praeker graduated he did too.

“Most young adults want to be gainfully employed and our opportunities in Strathmore are limited. So we decided to make it happen for Geordie,” said mom Barb Praeker. 

“We work at a number of places and this is what we do on Tuesday,” said Bayley. 

The ‘this’ he is talking about is, every Tuesday Bayley, Barb, Geordie, Lori Dollinger, Brienne Chabot, Alicea Praeker and sometimes Leona Trach and Linda Jensen gather at the Hope Community Covenant Church to bake goodies. They bake a number of things, cinnamon buns, caramel popcorn, rice krispie squares, to name a few, and Geordie’s favourite peanut butter chocolate chip cookies which also happen to be their biggest sellers.  Approximately 120 individually sealed packages are made up of ‘Geordie’s Goodies.’

Geordie has a helping hand in all of the recipes made each week, from helping decide what to make to helping with the actual baking process in some form.

When making the cookies, Geordie helps wash the counters, measures the ingredients and then scoops them onto the trays. After they are done cooking and cooling he helps package them and then they are labeled, put into the containers and delivered to the businesses. After collecting the money he will roll the coins, and then once a month Bayley and Geordie head off to the bank to deposit his earnings. 

Right now it works on the honour system, if people take a packaged treat they are expected to leave a loonie in the piggy bank. Barb said the hope is to move into more family-style baking and deliveries. They currently have three families they are preparing for. She said that’s what they are looking for, guaranteed orders. 

“How I think the dream came about was, I was in a doctors office for an appointment for Geordie and there was a little basket of cookies there and they were there from Cookies on The Go in Calgary. They started out one cookie at a time in a church basement, and I thought why can’t we do that here?” said Barb. 

“Geordie was leaving high school and this was just something we thought might work in Strathmore. It’s fantastic to have such a great team and people that are willing to be his customers and it gives him something to get up for in the morning, and he gets to go to work just like you and I do.” 

Cookies on The Go have grown from baking one batch of cookies a week, to owning a store front and about 100 clients who come there a week. They are also now moving into catering.

“I have a dream that maybe someday Strathmore can be like that. We’re probably as big as we can get at this moment because (making) 10 to 12 dozen in a morning, by the time we package and deliver that’s a full day. That’s about all the capacity we have here, so who knows where we’re going,” said Barb.

Making goodies is only Geordie’s Tuesday job. On Monday he can be found working at Home Hardware, Wednesday he is at UFA and on Thursdays he and Bayley deliver kindling, another new business venture for the men.  Bayley said they have a lot of pine shakes that they bundle and sell as kindling to campgrounds in the area. 

“Geordie has transitioned from the school structure to day programming and a life that has meaning and value and constructive work like we all want,” said Barb. 

“I think Geordie is inspiring for many people. Slowly society is changing its outlook on our people that have special needs. People’s attitudes change when they see that our young adults are capable and you hold the bar high and they reach for it, that’s certainly what we’ve found anyway,” said Barb. 

 Geordie is their entertainer, their comic relief, and their special heart. He is well known in the community, which Bayley said was emphasized by how many people waved and cheered him on during the Strathmore Stampede parade. Geordies Goodies can be found at Katy’s Consignment Boutique, UFA Bulk Fuel and AFSC. Orders can also be made by going to geordiesgoodies@gmail.com.