For the second year in a row, local Steven Armstrong reached out to the community to assist him with “Christmas Cookies of Love,” and the project was once again a huge success.
Christmas Cookies of Love is a community-focused endeavor where businesses purchased cookie boxes, community members made and donated a variety of cookies, different local organisations and entities helped package the cookies, various individuals and groups made cards to be delivered with the cookies, and local youth then made the deliveries.
People the cookies were delivered to were nominated by others in the community. Nominations were meant to help those who may need a little extra cheer, love or show of support this holiday season.
The home base for the project was Point Realty. Pam Langley of Lewis and Langley Realty and Merchants Bank donated money to buy the boxes that the cookies were packaged in. On Dec. 2, the Miami Trace Jr High Girls Basketball team came in and assembled the 325 cookie boxes.
This year on Dec. 9 and 10, according to Armstrong, there were 68 people who donated over 6,000 cookies along with local businesses the Rusty Keg and Capuano’s Deli. Of the donated cookies, local Leslie Stegall baked and donated 55 dozen of them.
On Dec. 11, the Jeffersonville All Arounders 4-H club came in and packaged the thousands of cookies into the boxes for delivery.
The Washington Court House City Schools’ third grade class, the Fayette Farm Life 4H Club, the Girl Scout Daisy Troop 8867 and the Sunday School youth group at St Benignus Catholic Church in Greenfield all had their kids make handwritten Christmas cards that were included with the delivery of the cookies.
“The people absolutely loved these sweet cards. The kids did an amazing job with them, and they had a lot of fun doing it,” wrote Armstrong via email. “I asked the community for names of addresses of people that could use ‘a little pick-me-up’ this holiday season. They were shut-ins, elderly, veterans, someone that has lost a spouse, someone sick maybe with cancer or covid or just because someone thought enough of them to think that they deserved a little surprise. I did not need a reason. If someone took the time to send me the name and address, we put them on the list.”
On Sunday, Dec. 12, Armstrong wrote that members of the Washington C.H. girls volleyball team, Miami Trace cheerleaders, Miami Trace volleyball team, Washington Court House girls soccer team, and the Jessica Six and Mary Miller families picked up their boxes of cookies and cards to deliver.
Altogether, they delivered cookies and cards to almost 350 local people as well as to the fire department, police department, sheriff’s office and the ER.
“A very important aspect of this project and all of the community projects that I do is getting our youth involved. These kids love doing these types of things — we, as adults, just need to give them the opportunities to do so. All of these kids had a lot of fun doing this, and I believe they gained a lot from it. I want to specifically mention the Lady Lions Volleyball team coached by Ashley DeAtley. This team is a special group of kids that is always the first ones to step up and help out with any community project. Just a few weeks ago, Ashley and her girls showed up at the Second Chance Center of Hope and hosted and worked a very nice Thanksgiving dinner for some of our needy in the community. Also, this year, these girls have participated in the Silent Watch program as well as Flags Over Fayette. Ashley does an amazing job of instilling the importance of community projects into her student athletes.
“I believe that all of our coaches, club leaders, etc. should be promoting and encouraging their groups to get involved in community projects. Our community has given so much to our youth as far as schools and other opportunities. I think it is very important that they give back some. Also, the families of Zach and Jessica Six as well as the Mary Miller family are always involved with any community project that we do, they are amazing people.”
Gratitude has been incoming since the cookie deliveries began.
“There were hundreds of Facebook posts of people that received this nice surprise — posting pics of the cards and cookies that they have received and talking about how much it meant to them,” wrote Armstrong. “I received scores of messages thanking our group for doing this. Many expressed how they had been down or sad, etc. and this little act of kindness really picked up their spirits. Many talked about how emotional it made them, even to tears. That is what we were trying to do with this. We wanted to make sure each person knows that someone was thinking about them and to put a smile on their face. In total we had over 120 youth involved in this project!”
Reach journalist Jennifer Woods at 740-313-0355.
