Cupcakes and community service

Projects to benefit nonprofits and honor the memory of Luke Carter-Schelp

Luke’s mother, Val Carter, said the Feb. 28 evening of community service projects, is a fitting way to honor her son’s birthday, even if he might not have wanted to go at first.

‘‘The irony of it is that it’s a nice way for [his friends] to get time together and have something to do,” she said Friday afternoon. Even if Luke might have rolled his eyes at the thought of the projects, she said with a smile.

It will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. at Garrett Park Town Hall, 10814 Kenilworth Ave.

‘‘Before we were heading to volunteer at an election precinct, he said, ‘I’ll volunteer if they have cupcakes,’” Carter said. ‘‘I just thought that was so Luke.”

Luke said the phrase days before he died and it became the central theme of the evening of service projects planned for next week and a positive way for Luke’s friends to remember his birthday as well.

Students can earn community service hours making Popsicle-stick picture frames and hero badges for children in hospitals among other projects to benefit the homeless and needy.

Carter, Garrett Park residents and the Montgomery County Volunteer Center have chipped in to help prepare the Community Cupcakes service event.

‘‘It just popped into my head one day,” Carter said. ‘‘It was so funny, so Luke, that I said I have to have cupcakes [at the service project].”

Cards, drawings and letters of support for the family have steadily arrived at the Garrett Park home since the boy’s death. Most of the notes and artwork are on display in the kitchen and Luke’s bedroom loft, while others are tucked away in binders.

‘‘The outpouring has been amazing,” Carter said. ‘‘I think it struck so many people because they thought it could have been their child.”

Many of the notes came from people Carter didn’t know Luke knew.

‘‘He just had a huge ripple effect on people that I didn’t know about,” she said.

So it made sense to invite everyone Luke possibly knew to celebrate his birthday.

‘‘I don’t know how we would hand select who would want to celebrate because I would never have predicted the people who have really been touched when he died,” his mother said.

Carter and the PTAs of Garrett Park Elementary and Tilden Middle Schools — both of which Luke attended — sent home fliers for the service project evening.

Some of Luke’s classmates and friends have helped plan the event with their parents.

‘‘It’s definitely a big party,” said Molly Miller, a seventh-grader at Tilden Middle School in Rockville. She and Luke knew each other since elementary school.

She said it made sense to do service projects rather than a regular birthday party or other event, because they’d be doing something to help the community.

Molly’s mother, Judi Miller, said many people are planning to make sandwiches for homeless shelters, breast cancer awareness pins and letters to servicemen and women overseas.

‘‘It’s all you hear about in the neighborhood,” she said Friday.

Cupcakes won’t be the only food for the volunteers, although Carter said there would be plenty in honor of Luke. She said nearby markets and restaurants also offered to help.

Whole Foods, Giant Food, Vocelli Pizza, Potomac Pizza, Armand’s Pizza, Grosvenor Market and Cakelove donated food and drinks.

The expected crowd of at least 100 people will have their choice of several different service projects on Feb. 28.

Students can assemble peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for homeless shelters or bookmarks for Books, Bears and Bonnets, a nonprofit that distributes items to children and adults fighting cancer.

Other projects will benefit Linkages to Learning, a program that provides mental and physical health, social and educational support for county children and families.

Several of the projects were organized by the Montgomery County Volunteer Center, which promotes volunteering among the 720 nonprofits in the county.

Andrea Jolly, volunteer center spokeswoman, said the group was already prepared to help arrange for service projects.

The center often receives calls from churches, synagogues and schools to help organize similar service projects, and many of the materials came from the center’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service on Jan. 15.

‘‘There are limited numbers of things [students and parents] can do all at the same time, so we looked back to ‘MLK Day’ and the projects that were the most successful,” she said.

‘‘I think it’s special for a lot of reasons,” Jolly said on Tuesday. ‘‘Anytime you get young people involved in service in the way that she’s doing, it begins to instill the idea of an ethic that they can carry into their adult lives.”

If you go

What: Community Cupcakes service project

When: 4-7 p.m.

Where: Garrett Park Town Hall, 10814 Kenilworth Ave.

For more informationcontact Val Carter atvalcater1@comcast.net or 301-949-4806.

The project counts toward fulfilling Montgomery County Public Schools community service requirements.