Don’t you love that aroma of fresh baked cookies? Or the comfort of delicious treats that you can taste were baked with love?
Well when that beautiful aroma of treats and that feeling of love with every tasty bite wafts over the Upper Campus, you can guarantee that it’s a Ruby household recipe.
Joli Ruby, a second-year math teacher and volleyball coach, has been baking as long as can remember, and recently she has been baking goods for every bake sale on campus, and for the classes she teaches.
“I love when I can give something to someone else,” Ms. Ruby said.
Ms. Ruby does it ‘for the love of the game’ her students say. She also has won plenty of fans amongst the faculty and staff.
“My favorite thing about it is that it’s made with love,” said Assistant to the Director of High School, Ashley Kocijan.
In her free time Ms. Ruby truly loves baking, whether she and her mother, Genie Ruby, are exchanging recipes through text or she’s baking something comforting.
“It’s something now where I’m not living at home anymore, so my mom and I send each other recipes back and forth, or after we try a new one, we’ll send it to each other,” Ms. Ruby said. “And it’s fun because we’re both branching out and doing more.”
Not only is baking a Ruby family tradition it has also been a spark plug for the OVS community.
“I think that their baking provides a fun community activity,” Mrs. Kocijan said. “It promotes school spirit, it goes toward a lot of really good things and they also support a lot of really good causes at school.”
Just last month Ms. Ruby and the volleyball team did many fundraisers for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Those fundraisers included a raffle at one of their games, countless bake sales in which Ruby family bakes goods were ubiquitous, and a ‘Pink Day’ in which every student wore pink to school and then to the game later in the day.
Everyone around the campus can tell you how delicious the treats they bake really are.
“I hate how dangerously delicious they are,” Mrs. Kocijan exclaimed.
Whether it’s her mother’s Rice Krispie Treats, or Ms. Rubys’ smores’ bars, the reputation of deliciousness and feeling of comfort and love will live on forever. Ms. Ruby points to her mom as her true inspiration and for laying the foundation of a legacy of Ruby family baking at Ojai Valley School.
“Her reputation is amazing,” Ms. Ruby said. “So if I could be half as good as she is, that’s the dream.”
