Push it out with the palm of your hand, eighth-grader Sid Lowry said; fold it back, turn it to the side.

She hadn’t made bread before, but she was getting the hang of it quickly.

It’s simple, but with the amount of bread the Douglas Dreamers 4-H club had to make on Sunday, it was good they had many hands.

The club met Sunday afternoon at Community Christian School for an annual tradition of making hundreds of rolls from scratch to give to the Salvation Army for use in Thanksgiving dinner.

-Messenger photo by Joe Sutter
Sid Lowry, 8th grade, quickly gets the hang of turning and kneading the dough Sunday afternoon.

“The first year we did this was 2002,” said Linda Cline, county program coordinator for Iowa State University Extension. “They made 548 rolls. Last year they made 864.”

This year, there were 963, she said. The 4-Hers showed up in two shifts, about 25 students each.

That makes about 19 rolls per student.

“We’ll freeze them at Party Productions,” Cline said. “Then we’ll take them to the Salvation Army the day before Thanksgiving.”

Students set up an assembly line at long tables — flour at one end, eggs here, melted butter there for easy mixing. The younger ones partnered with older students, most of whom had done this before

-Messenger photo by Joe Sutter
Cooper Fleming, a junior, shows the younger 4-H Douglas Dreamers members how much flour to use and how to measure it when making rolls for the Salvation Army Sunday. The club has been supplying the Thanksgiving dinner staple since 2002.

“I’ve been doing this since, I think three or four years,” said Luke Vaughn, a freshman. “It’s fun. And they taste so good.”

The kids also enjoy giving bread to a good cause.

In 2016, The Salvation Army served 225 people at Thanksgiving.