On Wednesday, December 15, YCQ PTO members and their families came together in celebration of the mitzvah of baking challah at the YCQ PTO Annual Challah Bake. Inspired and guided by speaker Mrs. Naomi Elberg of @naomi_tgis, over 100 participants baked challah in merit of t’filos for friends, family, and community members.
Mrs. Naomi Elberg, originally an early childhood educator, found her true passion in baking and the kosher culinary world. In 2014, Naomi decided to follow her dream full time by starting TGIS Challah – which stands for Thank Goodness it’s Shabbos – offering challahs, babkas, and more.
“Having a live Challah Bake is such a brachah for us! While Zoom has been useful, and we did have a successful Challah Bake last year, nothing is better than being together to perform such a special mitzvah together in person! What I love about the YCQ PTO Challah Bake every year is the feeling of achdus and unity; being in the room when everyone is davening is an unbelievable feeling. We all get busy, it’s life, and we don’t always get time to stop and appreciate and reflect, and I take such pride in helping to gift those special moments to our YCQ community,” reported Mrs. Julie Faska, YCQ PTO Co-President.
Mrs. Valerie Olsen, YCQ Parent and former YCQ PTO Co-President, stated, “The challah bake was a wonderful event! Attended by over 100 participants and sponsors, we were wowed by Instagram sensation Mrs. Naomi Elberg. Everyone learned how to braid beautiful designs with their challah dough!”
Mr. Simon Landsberg, Co-President of the YCQ PTO, expressed, “The YCQ PTO is so appreciative of the help of countless parent-volunteers and students, who helped prepare for the Challah Bake in advance.
The shlepping of hundreds of pounds of flour, sugar, salt, yeast, and gallons of water and oil, which are then premeasured for every attendee, is a lot of work, and without their help we could not have held such a wonderful event.
Mrs. Naomi Elberg is an amazing and dynamic speaker, who guided the audience beautifully, gave great baking tips, and put on an amazing demonstration on different braiding techniques.
We are so happy that we were able to have this event in person, and look forward to hosting many other YCQ PTO Annual Challah Bake events in the future.”
