December 10, 2003
Cookie sale on colossal scale
Old Mission Women's Club bakes 22,000 cookies for annual holiday fund-raiser
By
Herald staff writer
With 22,000 cookies in more than 300 varieties, the Old Mission Women's Club holiday cookie sale could be considered a sweet lover's dream.
The club's eighth annual fund-raiser, held Saturday at the Peninsula Fire House, featured home baked goodies including chocolate almond brickle, apricot angles, church windows, buckeyes, molasses sugar cookies and Hungarian hazelnut rings to name just a few.
Each of the club's 103 members contributed her own specialties to the event that raises money for local charities. The promise of holiday favorites had shoppers waiting for the doors to open early Saturday morning.
"I've never seen anything like this. I heard you had to be here early, now I see why," said first time sweets shopper, Sandy Andringa of the Port of Old Mission.
Cookies, however, are not the only reason the fund-raiser is so well attended.
"This is a good way to put something back into our community," said Elise Auxier of Traverse City.
"I have worked on projects that have benefited from the Old Mission Women Club's generosity and this is just a way to help pay back - that, and now I won't have to bake," Auxier said.
The Old Mission Women's Club holds the annual event as their primary way to raise funds to benefit the community.
"People really go all out for this," said cookie sale organizer, Mary Jordan.
"All of the money goes back into our community. We have contributed to local groups like the Traverse Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, Old Mission Fire and Rescue Association, the Alzheimer's Association, the Old Mission Historical Society and Peninsula Community Library," Jordan noted.