93-year-old sells cookbook for well money

From staff reports

Regionally reknowned cook Katie Gilbert, 93, signs cookbooks she is donating for contributions to digging wells in India.

Contributed photo

Winning 1,976 ribbons at Stokes County, Dixie Classic and North Carolina State fairs for cooking and canning excellence ought to count for something in the world of cookbooks, thought Katie Gilbert's friends.

And now the 93-year old member of Bethany Baptist Church in Winston-Salem is making her treasure count for lives on the other side of the world.

Members of Bethany Baptist, which seeks to help each member "use whatever gift he has received to serve others," (1 Peter 4:10) are producing a cookbook with Gilbert's recipes to raise money to dig wells in India.

Member Loretta Flake, who promised her mother before she died not to "forget the old people," was inspired by a recent Mandate missions video about the North Carolina Baptist Men's partnership to drill wells in isolated villages in India.

When Flake heard of Gilbert's offer to make her recipes available, she and Ruby Webster decided to assemble a cookbook specifically of Miss Katie's Prize-winning Recipes and give them away in exchange for donations - all of which would go toward drilling a well in India.

Bethany pastor Don Harvey said the project went so well that in just two weeks cookbook sales raised more than $3,500 - enough to drill five wells, and far exceeding expectations of the trio. One buyer donated $1,000 for her copy.

"This is just an example of three people who are willing to 'use whatever gift she has received' to serve others," said Harvey.