MARQUETTE — It’s never to early to learn kindness.

The Peter White Public Library hosted a Wednesday gathering of the PWPL Kindness Club so youngsters could make no-bake peanut butter dog biscuits for lucky local canines.

Kate Dohnal, Youth Services assistant at the library, watched over the kids as they mixed pumpkin puree, peanut butter, milk and old-fashioned oats to make homemade biscuits.

The treats, she said, will be donated to families who can use them as well as the Upper Peninsula Animal Welfare Shelter.

The PWPL Kindness Club is all about such good deeds.

“This is a program that we started this past summer,” Dohnal said, “and we just wanted to have a way for kids to volunteer to do activities that can help generate kindness in the Marquette community.”

Other activities, she said, have included a “massive” tree planting with the Superior Watershed Partnership and its Great Lakes Climate Corps as well as making T-shirts.

Writing “kind” messages in chalk around the neighborhood is being planned as an upcoming activity, Dohnal said.

“The end goal is to have kids volunteer with community partners, but we’re still working that out,” she said.

In the meantime, the youngsters who took part in Wednesday’s project learned basic skills such as how to properly use a can opener and knowing to read a recipe before they begin to create a dish.

Mixing the ingredients, though, proved to be a bit of a challenge.

Inga Johnson, 7, of Marquette, said “ew” as the pumpkin puree was poured into a cup.

“When do we start to dump it?” the girl asked.

They also had to work with sticky peanut butter, which probably isn’t the easiest task, even for adults.

“It’s kind of hard to work with,” Dohnal told them. “The pumpkin will help it mix up.”

For more information on library youth programs, visit www.pwpl.info.

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.