On a quiet street in Marseilles, nestled in an even more humble church basement, 15 women from different communities came together with passion and purpose. Today, the annual cookie drive happened at the Trinity Lutheran Church on Union Street, just as it has for the last 48 years.
Before the cookies were sorted, a prayer was said by Karen Romano, a member of the Trinity congregation and whom we all looked to for instructions. Also, before we went to work on countless containers of homemade cookies, she asks “did anyone bake more than 1,083 cookies?” Turns out that was the number of cookies that Diane Nolan, also a member of the host church, Trinity had made. Making any amount of homemade cookies is a labor of love, especially as our group ages, but more than a thousand cookies is something to celebrate. Karen celebrated her friend with a gift for making the most. Coming in second at 489 cookies was newcomer, Emily Owens, which much to the excitement of the group is a YOUNG woman. Youthfulness is important in a group of, shall we say, wise church ladies. Whats more, Emily said she likes to bake and that she will be back next year. She came with specialty recipes that were passed down from her family members, such as Kringla. Kringla made these majority Norwegian woman extra cheerful in this already joy-filled task.
Let me back up, this undertaking has been carried on for generations and is a partnership between multiple churches, neighbors, towns, friends and family. Zion Lutheran Church in Ottawa along with Hope Lutheran Church in Shorewood have been participating in this event for decades. I was the lone representative from Trinity Lutheran in Ottawa, my neighbor Jane was there on goodwill from St. Pats in Ottawa, Emily from Immanuel Lutheran in Marseilles and so on. While showing up for the unloading, counting, sorting, packing and delivering is an obviously important step, first comes the baking. As participants of this drive, we often ask our friends and family to bake, including Coach Tim Smith’s Marquette girls basketball teammates. Some years people have shown up with so many cookies that our count was in the 12,000’s!! I remember those years, I’ve been a part of this mission off and on since the late 1990’s, when I too was a member of Trinity in Marseilles. I really enjoyed the process and the idea of making people who may not have a lot of hope, a little cheerier for the holidays. After my Mom retired, she and her church crew including her Aunt Shirley, Betty, Jaunita, Doris, Bernice, Dotty, and Irene were all the mainstays throughout the years. Sadly most of them, including my mom, Cathi have passed away.
Karen said she called all the area nursing homes to get a count of their residents and to make sure they would accept our sweet offerings. The past couple years, Karen along with my cousin Tim Smith and some others from Trinity have operated on a scaled back version of distributing store bought cookies due to COVID. Getting back to delivering something homemade to residents at nursing homes, Friendship Village, and Morningstar Mission in Joliet is a little merrier than a bag of Oreos, though who doesn’t like an Oreo?
We all baked, collected, and showed up baring tinfoil baking pans, giant discolored Tupperware containers, cardboard boxes, and ziplock bags FULL OF COOKIES. We ask our donors to count the cookies and put the number on the outside to make tallying easier. Jane and friends got to work and had the count done quickly. 5,412 was the number. Less than most years but not bad for the first year back post-covid. Someone else who is better at counting and math than I, told us to put 9 cookies in each bag. 90 year-old Diane from Hope Lutheran sat with friend, Francine and a couple others who were placing the filled bags into a styrofoam containers with a small prayer card donning a verse from Luke. “Young Emily” and I filled in wherever we were needed, putting cookies in bags, filling containers, building boxes, filling boxes, and hauling boxes up the stairs. Somehow, like every other year, the job was done within an hour or 2. About halfway through the packing, a woman let out a scream and we stopped and looked as she stared distraught, at the site of a broken gingerbread man cookie on the ground.
Carol Loughran from Zion said she remembers getting together with her church friends to bake for this drive in the 1980’s. Gail and her Mother Diane from Hope Lutheran said they’ve been driving down from Shorewood every year and look forward to serving the Lord through this mission. Diane Nolan said she remembers baking cookies for this as a young girl alongside her mother, Doris. She and Doris baked cookies together until Doris could no longer bake, then she would give Diane the money to buy the baking supplies. In the past, because of larger amounts of cookies we were able to deliver to PADS homeless shelter, Sheridan prison, OSF nurses, Marseilles National Guard and more.
Karen sent invites to most local churches asking for help, as any input is appreciated. Trinity Lutheran donates many of the materials such as the boxes, bags, and containers. Also donated by trinity and served by them as well, a wonderful post-packing meal. Leftover roast beef from the annual roast beef dinner was served and it was delicious! For dessert, broken cookies of course! Karen said she has asked some other churches if they would be interested in taking over making and serving the meal, so far no luck. That said, I am committed to seeing this mission grow and will get to work early next year imploring more involvement throughout our communities. Nothing spreads holiday cheer like people coming together for a feel-good purpose in the house of God.
I asked Diane, Ms. 1,083 cookies, what her favorite cookie was to bake and eat and she said “well……all of them!” I feel you, Diane, I feel you.
mpoweredstate 