[Sca-cooks] [SharcPit] Jello Fun Barbie

[johnna holloway]

Details.... details... details...
This was a March is Reading Month theme, so the entire Elementary school
was involved. 400 students grades K-5th.
We went with red Jell-o because quite frankly there wasn't enough blue
Jell-o available in the region to do it. With red we could use
strawberry, watermelon, cherry, black cherry, raspberry,etc. The
students donated the majority of the Jell-o, a box at a time in most
cases. They took great pleasure at arriving at school and showing Mrs.
Nickel that not only were they reading but that they were donating.
She'd make fuss and they loved it. Parents got involved big time too
which helped. The PTO at the end chipped in $20 and I bought every box
on sale at 5/$1.00. We ran out of Jell-O in Chelsea, so some parents
were buying it in other towns and bringing it in. I signed up a
volunteer force to make it. I packaged up boxes and gave bags of the
Jell-O to moms with notes that read X number of boxes... use Y number of
cups... makes   so many quarts or gallons. One box makes two cups, so
you can do the math. Most made a gallon or two. One or two made as much
as 3-4 gallons. Some of the classrooms also made up Jell-o in their
classes. It was made in plastic buckets, plastic storage containers,
rubbermaid toy chests... I made the rest between 22 and 23 gallons. And
I boiled the water for mine. It took most of one day. We were lucky in
that it was cold enough outside that it could be placed in a garage
where it set up w/o refrigeration. One major problem is that 23 gallons
of Jell-O weighs a lot and transporting it was a very funny experience.
On the day of the jump it was hauled in and dumped in the tank. We used
a stock watering tank to put the Jell-o in. Approximately 75 gallons...
maybe 28-30 inches deep. She put a wet suit and actually fell backwards
into it rather than jumping. It dyed her skin red. The school read 4200
hours up from 2500 hours from the previous year. The next year we turned
her into a root beer float.

Johnna Holloway   Johnnae

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> Despite all the jokes about this, I've wondered if anyone ever
> created that much jello to play in.
>
> Is there a source for super sized boxes of jello? Or did you just
> buy a whole lot of the regular boxes? I could probably look on a
> package the next time I go to the grocery, but how many of those
> boxes does it take to make 65 gallons of jello? Was this all one
> color/flavor? Or was it a hodgepodge of different ones?