Support baked into cookies for overseas

Wrapped in the aromatic scents of melted chocolate and baking cookies, volunteers cooked up treats for overseas troops during a bake-a-thon on Sunday.

The cookie bake-a-thon is a major project of the Troop Support Action Committee, a group of local volunteers brought together by the Bailey website Pinecam. The committee’s mission is to support servicemen and women, and members mixed and baked for a Colorado National Guard unit in Iraq.

The annual convection convention was held at the Shawnee Community Center, housed in VFW Post 8661 just outside Bailey. This year’s recipient of the mixing marathon is the 3rd Battalion of the 157th Field Artillery, 169th Fires Brigade, a unit of the Colorado National Guard.

Mary Sasser, co-chair of the Troop Support Action Committee, said the committee asked the commander of the unit what things the troops would want from home and was told the soldiers really wanted two things: baked goods and handwritten notes.
About 20 volunteers formed a high-precision assembly line of mixing, baking, cutting, cooling, bagging and packaging. When all was said and done, the members donated 92 volunteer hours to make 1,980 cookies.

Hand-written Christmas cards will also accompany the homemade reminders of home.

Cat McCarthy, a first-time volunteer for the TSAC project, had a wrist injury that prevented her from participating in the cookie undertaking, but she knew she could find some way to help out.

“I knew there would be something for me to do, so I’m writing out cards with holiday wishes for servicemen,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy tackled the stack of cards, writing a personal message inside each one. Wearing wrist braces on both wrists, she wrote just a few sentences in each.

However, words alone could not communicate the sounds, sights and scents of the day: the sound of a volunteer’s laughter, the long tables laden with cooling racks, and the irresistible smells of chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin and sugar cookies.

Cheryl Quaintance was dressed in red, white and blue, with most of the red coming from the heat in the kitchen. Quaintance mastered the cookie pan formations and said the challenge was to make sure cookies were neither burned nor raw.

“It’s a little hot in here,” Quaintance said with a smile.

Debra Fuller, secretary-treasurer of TSAC, talked about the organization as she worked to roll out and cut the prepared sugar cookie dough.

“Troop comfort and morale are paramount to our mission, and we like to make them happy,” Fuller said.

The National Guard unit will receive the cookies and cards in the next few weeks, and Sasser said the committee usually receives a letter from the commander when the cookies arrive. The letter will be posted on the Pinecam website in the Yellow Ribbon Lounge, a forum that functions to support veterans and their families.

Sasser said it was wonderful to be a part of the bake-a-thon.

“We should pay to be here because it makes you feel so good,” Sasser said.