Safeway Corporation has conducted Gingerbread House building competitions for kids in other areas and recently asked Jill Maas, the Admiral Safeway Deli Dept. Mgr. to find a school to participate in West Seattle. Naturally she chose Lafayette Elementary School across the street from the store. Various classrooms competed in their own customized construction of Gingerbread houses with the raw materials supplied by the store.

Maas presented the idea to the school but at first, because of the scheduled classwork, it was going to be up to the students to tackle the project before and after school and during their lunch hour. The students had two weeks to get it done and all entries had to be in by Dec. 7.

Of those submitted the winning entry was by Mr. Beal's second grade class and they received a $200 gift certificate from Safeway. Second place was Mr. Hodges fifth grade class. They got a $100 gift certificate. The 7 remaining all got $75 gift certificates.

One student, Ben, did the M&M's around the windows. "When we were done we got to eat the candy that hadn't been touched!"

The houses are on display, atop the salad bar in the Deli Dept. until January 1.