‘Kookies for Kamala’ is all about activating Philly kids — and alliteration

As Beyoncé’s music pulsed from a speaker, some of East Mount Airy’s most ardent Kamala Harris supporters gathered on a leafy sidewalk corner Sunday morning.

It’ll be at least a decade until many of them can vote. Yet local grade-school children were holding their second “Kookies for Kamala” bake sale, bagging up treats and collecting handfuls of cash from passersby at the corner of Durham and Crittenden Streets.

For $1 a cookie and $2 a bag, all sales were considered donations that will be put toward Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign against former President Donald Trump, according to their parents. The group raised $2,031 in three hours Sunday, on top of $680 from the first sale two weeks ago.

“The energy, the hope that’s in the air right now, it’s just contagious,” said Raissa Schickel, who thought up the idea along with her 8-year-old daughter, Kaia, and partner, Lauren Silver, earlier this month as Democrats’ excitement over the Harris-Tim Walz ticket ballooned.

“We really wanted the kids to feel that,” Schickel said.

Her plan worked. Sunday’s “Kookie” sale was nearly as jubilant as the recently wrapped Democratic National Convention.

Kaia, a rising third grader, and her neighborhood friends were all smiles as they buzzed between fold-up tables, each lined with chocolate chip and sugar cookies baked fresh Sunday morning at several houses.

Others sat in the grass, streaking colorful markers across signs that would artfully bear the Democratic nominee’s name. To be clear, it was “cookies” they were advertising, but riffing on the alliteration with Kamala by replacing C with K.

From the speaker, Beyoncé posed a call and response: “Who runs the world? Girls.”

“What gets me excited is that [Harris] will support equality,” said Kaia during a break from the cash box (the kids took Venmo, too). “She’ll help women have more rights.”

Most of the parents did not want details about their children disclosed, including their last names.

Parker, a sixth grader and an aspiring artist, had hand-drawn a Kamala Harris sign for Sunday’s event. For the first “Kookies” sale, Parker stayed up late squeezing lemons for lemonade.

“I don’t really like Trump,” Parker said. “I believe in [Harris]. I believe she’s gonna do the right thing.”

Silver, mom to Kaia, said support for “Kookies” spread like wildfire after the first event, with chatter in group texts and on social media drawing interest from nearby families.

Silver saw some new faces on Sunday, as children paraded down the block to advertise their bake sale along a busier roadway.

Several parents plan to divide the funds and make individual donations to abide by campaign finance rules.

“Of course the adults are helping with it all,” Silver said, “but we definitely want to center kids, and create a space where they can be active and contribute their own passions and energy to something good.”

With school starting this week, the parents were not sure yet if more sales would be held.

Lucretia Browning, who has lived in the neighborhood for nearly a decade, had tears in her eyes as she waited in line to purchase cookies.

Browning said that she felt the nation’s politics had become a “battlefield” of division, and that she believed a Harris presidency was a way to move forward.

“We are just so blessed to live in this kind of neighborhood, where kids are getting involved in what’s happening,” Browning said. “They just want a better world.”