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Woman honors best friend with Cookies N’ Cocoa

Cierra Chamot of Buckeye, above, wants to continue the legacy of her friend, Heather

Began of Avondale. (Photo by Pablo Robles)

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

West Valley View Executive Editor

Cierra Chamot lost her best friend, Heather Began, when an impaired driver crashed into her car in Phoenix in October 2019.

“She was bubbly,” Chamot said. “She always had a bubbly personality. She lit up any room she walked into. Her smile and laughter were contagious. She was my adventure buddy. We would go on random camping trips around Arizona. She loved her family, friends and God. Those were her three priorities, along with her students.”

Since Began’s death, Chamot has been honoring her. Both of them loved Christmas.

In October 2019, Chamot introduced Cookies N’ Cocoa, which raises school supplies for Estrella Vista STEM Academy and Tempe’s Rover Elementary School.

“I thought I would do an event in honor of her that benefited the school where she worked, Estrella Vista STEM Academy,” said Chamot, a 26-year-old Buckeye resident.

At a small Christmas get-together, Chamot collected books for the Avondale school that’s in the Littleton Elementary School District.

Last year, Chamot held a much larger public event that would benefit the two schools. She served free cookies and cocoa and collected school supplies in exchange.

“It started as a small Christmas party at my house, honestly,” said Cha-

mot, who is an event tour manager and the office manager for Extreme Faith Productions in Chandler. “I wanted to do something in honor of Heather — something that supported what she loved, which was her students.”

She has also held a book drive, where she collected more than 1,000 books. Her goal was 260.

“Obviously, we blew that goal out of the water,” she said. “For the next year, I decided to do the event again, but on a bigger scale.”

During the summer this year, Chamot has been building a Christmas attraction. The support has been overwhelming, as donors have given her tools, wood, lights and trees. She is hosting a GoFundMe to raise money for the event. Visit https://bit.ly/ BeganBenefit.

Chamot’s plan is to open the walk-thru event on Friday, Dec. 10, at Rover Elementary School, but with the pandemic, the plans could change.

“It will be even bigger,” she said. “There will be more to the North Pole, more stops along the way. It’s going to be a walk-thru this year.

“The whole set is built out of wood. For Mrs. Claus’ Bakery, we’re building baking display cases this year. With the GoFundMe, the money will go toward any event costs and anything over and above the event costs will go to school supplies.”

Chamot said Began’s family in Illinois is touched that she has done so much to remember her friend.

“A couple of her amily members are coming out this year for the event,” she said. “They’re really excited about it. They share it on Facebook all the time.”

Cookies N’ Cocoa

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Cierra Chamot is an event tour manager and the office manager for Extreme Faith

Productions. (Photo by Pablo Robles)

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ANSWERS ON PAGE 23

King Crossword

ACROSS

1 Pool stick 4 Gasoline dispensers 9 Attorney’s field 12 “Right you --!” 13 Not moving 14 Blond shade 15 Online reference source 17 Carefree 18 By way of 19 Pancake toppers 21 Museum tour guide 24 -- Hari 25 Swelled head 26 Solidify 28 Semesters 31 Stately trees 33 Homer’s neighbor 35 Mt. Rushmore’s state 36 Seized vehicles 38 Dict. info 40 Sundial numeral 41 Hgt. 43 Ancient pyramid builders 45 Bale 47 Mineral suffix 48 Days of yore 49 Sibelius work or vodka brand 54 Blackbird 55 Totally 56 Inventor Whitney 57 Goat’s plaint 58 Lauder of cosmetics 59 Marry

DOWN

1 Crow’s cry 2 Mentalist Geller 3 “A spider!” 4 Slipcover trim 5 Like leftovers 6 Club -7 Spectrum creator 8 Patronize, as a hotel 9 New York airport 10 Now, in a memo 11 Reasons 16 “-- been had!” 20 Numbered rds. 21 Woodland grazer 22 Leer at 23 Summaries 27 Went first 29 Primary 30 Tackles moguls 32 Auctioneer’s cry 34 Cecil B. -37 Arm’s-length portrait 39 Femme -42 Ore layers 44 Longing 45 Smile broadly 46 Forearm bone 50 Rebel Turner 51 Morning moisture 52 -- -de-France 53 Succor

by Linda Thistle

The idea of Go Figure is to arrive at the figures given at the bottom and right-hand columns of the diagram by following the arithmetic signs in the order they are given (that is, from left to right and top to bottom). Use only the numbers below the diagram to complete its blank squares and use each of the nine numbers only once.

DIFFICULTY THIS WEEK H

H Moderate HH Challenging HHH HOO BOY!

Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

DIFFICULTY THIS WEEK H H

H Moderate HH Challenging HHH HOO BOY!

EVEN EXCHANGE

by Donna Pettman

Each numbered row contains two clues and two answers. The two answers differ from each other by only one letter, which has already been inserted. For example, if you exchange the A from MASTER for an I, you get MISTER. Do not change the order of the letters.

SCRAMBLERS

Unscramble the letters within each rectangle to form four ordinary words. Then rearrange the boxed letters to form the mystery word, which will complete the gag!