The smell of cooking apples and an open fire spread across campus this early November as Blue Ridge School students continued the tradition of cooking apple butter to sell for charity.

Spearheaded by the students in the entrepreneurship class, nearly everyone took part peeling, cutting, stirring the giant kettle, or filling jars. The collective effort yielded more than 200 jars of delicious apple butter. Students will be selling apple butter to family, friends, and locals to raise money for the Headstrong Foundation, which provides confidential and stigma-free mental health treatment for military members, veterans, and their families free of charge.

In recent years, the Blue Ridge School apple butter sales have benefitted the Terry Fox Foundation and The V Foundation for Cancer Research. The recipe of “Old Man Tim’s Apple Buttah” has been passed down from the days of Tim Cormany’s years making apple butter with students to benefit Operation Smile.

Entreprenuership teacher George Mackaronis has taken over much of the responsibility of the annual apple butter project but he knows it’s the community that makes the annual event a success. He says, “I’m thankful that all of our teachers bring their classes out to cut, peel, and cook the apples. Not only do they give their students the chance to learn first-hand about an Appalachian tradition, but they also show their students how fun and rewarding it can be to do things for the benefit of others.”