{"id":43641,"date":"2023-04-27T06:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T10:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelandmark.com\/?p=43641"},"modified":"2023-04-27T06:01:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T10:01:00","slug":"kyles-cookies-to-honor-ron-marsh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/2023\/04\/27\/kyles-cookies-to-honor-ron-marsh\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle’s cookies to honor Ron Marsh"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Danielle Ray Landmark Correspondent<\/i><\/div>\n

RUTLAND \u2014 11-year-old Kyle Bjorklund has taken the concept of cooking up and choreographing a sweet gesture to a whole new, literal level.<\/p>\n

During the last two townwide yard sales, the Central Tree Middle School sixth-grader baked and sold dozens of chocolate chip cookies, having learned how to make cookies by watching baking shows during the COVID-19 pandemic. But he decided to go a step further and raise funds for good causes.<\/p>\n

The first time, Kyle donated a portion of his cookie sales to Color the Spectrum, a livestream event hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and former NASA engineer and YouTube Creator Mark Rober to raise money to support NEXT for AUTISM; last year\u2019s beneficiary was UNICEF\u2019s Children of Ukraine fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring 2020 and 2021, we watched quite a bit of videos and shows with Mark Rober. He had a drive to raise money for autism, and I wanted to contribute as well. Last year I heard about the invasion of Ukraine, and I decided I wanted to help out the children in that country by donating to UNICEF\u2019s Children of Ukraine fund,\u201d Kyle said.<\/p>\n

This year the young humanitarian is back at it and will donate a portion of his sales to the Rutland Lions Club in memory and honor of late friend and neighbor Ron Marsh, a beloved member of the community who passed away in January at age 77.<\/p>\n

Born in Holden and raised in Rutland, Ronald C. Marsh graduated from Wachusett Regional High School and was a devoted husband, father, and faithful member of the First Congregational Church in town. He earned the distinguished Eagle Scout Award as a Boy Scout and worked as a Scoutmaster for 10 years, mentoring many Rutland Scouts in Troop 141.<\/p>\n

Ron was a member of the Rutland Lions Club for many years, two of those as president, and received the Melvin Jones Award, the Lions International highest award, and the Joseph J. Camarda Fellowship Award and District 33A Award during his time with the club.<\/p>\n

His obituary recorded that Ron was a respected, well-known \u201cfigure in the community, one who was overwhelmingly generous with his time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ron is deeply missed by his wife of 55 years, Elaine, and many family members including his son, Stephen, three sisters, nieces and nephews, four grandchildren who affectionately called him \u2018Bumpy,\u2019 as well as friends, neighbors, and the large circle of those who knew and loved him, including the Bjorklunds, who have lived in town since August 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cRon was a really good friend and neighbor and helped a lot of people in his lifetime,\u201d Kyle said.<\/p>\n

Kyle\u2019s dad Brian Bjorklund posted a photo of his son mixing cookie batter on the Wachu-Chat Facebook page Sunday that has garnered hundreds of reactions and dozens of comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cAwesome stuff Kyle. You are an epic human,\u201d one man wrote; another penned \u201cKyle you\u2019re amazing! What a wonderful way to honor a friend. No question if Mr. Marsh is smiling down on you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe response on social media has been incredible thus far. So many people have already donated money via Venmo without any expectation of getting cookies,\u201d Brian said. \u201cPeople remember Kyle\u2019s cookies from the past two Rutland townwide yard sales. Not to mention, Ron Marsh had such an immense impact on the community and was loved by everyone. What better way to honor someone who acted the way Ron did than to make a donation in his name that was truly collected from the people he had such a profound impact on. Ron\u2019s commitment to his community was astounding. He would give the shirt off his back to help a complete stranger. We need more people like him in this world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle has been busy prepping over the last two weeks to make 300 cookies by mixing ingredients, rolling dough balls and freezing them ahead of spending a few hours after school on Friday baking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy thinking about how the cookies make the people eating them happy,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n

Brian said he and his wife, Christine, Kyle\u2019s mom, \u201chaven\u2019t needed to give Kyle much assistance when it comes to the actual cookies, with the exception of buying the ingredients. We just help get the word out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up I was taught that giving back to others is incredibly important, and we\u2019ve tried to instill that same mentality in Kyle,\u201d Brian said. \u201cIt makes me so proud to see how great of a kid he\u2019s turned out to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle\u2019s homemade cookies will be on hand to enjoy beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday, April 29, in front of his home at 22 Cheryl Ann Drive. Cookies are $.75 each and will be available until they are gone. To donate to Kyle\u2019s fundraising efforts without purchasing cookies, they can Venmo Brian at @brian-bjorklund-2.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me feel good knowing that I live in a great community,\u201d Kyle said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUTLAND \u2014 11-year-old Kyle Bjorklund has taken the concept of cooking up and choreographing a sweet gesture to a whole new, literal level. During the last two townwide yard sales, the Central Tree Middle School sixth-grader baked and sold dozens of chocolate chip cookies, having learned how to make cookies by watching baking shows during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devcherryroad.com\/news2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}