“Eat cookies, meet people, enjoy being queer,” is how Madilyn Harris, the president of Bradley’s LGBTQ+ outreach and activism organization, Common Ground, described the first-ever cookie decorating event on Sept. 27.
A small group of students gathered to turn 20 plain sugar cookies into edible masterpieces with vanilla frosting and sprinkles.
Tatum Eads, a junior graphic design major, decorated their cookie with a shocked face using sprinkles.
“I think it takes a steady hand, and you’ve got to swirl the frosting right. You don’t just smear it,” Eads said.
Liliana Castro, a junior graphic design and Spanish double major, took a similar approach to their decoration.
“I made a cookie with a little happy face poking its tongue out,” Castro said. “I had pretty much a boring day, so I wanted to spice it up with something silly.”
Along with enjoying the activity, both Eads and Castro appreciated the laid-back atmosphere of the event.
“It was fun [and] kinda silly, you know?” Eads said. “I liked that you didn’t have to do a lot; you got to do kind of what you wanted.”
Castro also praised the timing of the event for slotting between after classes ended but before Homecoming, which was Common Ground’s strategy.
“We wanted something that was closer to fall break and something where a lot of people would stop by from Homecoming and maybe come in, just in case they were out in the field,” Harris, an international studies major, said.
Harris hopes that after the success of the event, Common Ground will be able to expand its cookie decorating horizons with more sprinkles and cookie types.
“We were going to try to do different colored frosting for the flags, but again, we didn’t know how much we would get, and there are so many colors and so many flags,” Harris said. “Hopefully, since we got a lot of people this year, next semester we’ll be able to do something like that.”
Castro looks forward to the return of the event.
“I love cookies, and I love when they’re free, and I love decorating them,” Castro said. “I will definitely be there, and I suggest everyone who reads this article be there as well.”
