GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donna Pasterski, wakes up each morning with a grateful heart. "Christmas is my favorite time of the year, and it's just fun because I'm with my two daughters we just have a great time here," she said.
Donna, and her daughters Carrie and Tina spend time working together at the "From Above Youth Center and Bakery" in Green Bay.
"I spend more time with my sister and my mom, when we get together stuff like that we have more fun, it's Christmas," said Tina Pasterski, Donnna's daughter. The bakery is a non profit organization, run by the family. Their mission is to help teens, and people of all ages with special needs develop valuable job skills.
They all have a good time.
"I'm the queen diipper, I make cake balls, I dip em in chocolate, put sprinkles on em, we don't have any out here right now but I just finished a pan of them" said Donna.
The trio have been baking cookies from the heart, for almost 4 years. "We make everything from scratch, so Tina we look and see what we have so she mixes up all of our dough, I roll them all out, cut them out by hand, we bake them, we have to let them sit and cool and then we decorate them," said President Carrie Zehms, also Donna's daughter.
The decorations are the specialty here, each frosted dot, or sugary- swirl crafted by hand.
"At Christmas time, we like to have them because they're fun to make put sprinkles and put all the colors, spring leafs and all the colors, and the different flavors," said Donna.
Eighth grader, Natalie Reif, happily volunteers her time, "I get good experience, it's so much fun."
But we had to ask, what's the best cookies. The answer according to Donna... "probably the pecan toes, the white powdered sugar ones, ground pecans dipped in powdered sugar, they're fun to make and fun to eat."
All smiles and laughter out of this small bakery, topped off with sprinkles and lots of love. The perfect recipe for the holidays.
