10,000 Reasons to Say Thank You

February 22, 2012

I started Sweet Hope Cookies on Valentines Day 2011. I made up about 6 or 7 different Valentine cookie sets and took them to church to see if I could round up 20 orders from that wonderfully generous group of Lutheran Swedes. 20 orders would have been awesome. I would have been thrilled to scrap together 20 orders. My gratitude would have been off the charts to get 20 orders.  Instead I ended up with 55 orders and if there would have been time to do a happy dance and squeal with glee I would have but instead I high-tailed my little baking self into the kitchen and got to work.

The donations I raised that first Valentines for the ALS Association and my brother’s enthusiasm for what I’d accomplished inspired me to keep baking and so I did and this year, with only a few weeks until Valentines Day I saw that I was just 1000 dollars short of 10,000.00 and so I pulled out the heart-shaped cookie cutters, mixed up enough white, pink, and red glaze to fill a jacuzzi tub (I would advise not doing that literally) and got to cookie-ing. Rather than taking orders this time, I decided to just go into the kitchen and bake and decorate until my fingers fell off and then haul all the goodies to church the Sunday before Valentines Day and see what would happen. And so for a solid week I baked and decorated. I slept a few times, ate a meal or two and I think there was even a conversation somewhere in there with my spouse but again, my memory gets a little cloudy when major cookie-ing is involved. I had no idea how many cookies I was baking or how many sets of cookies I’d have when the powdered sugar settled but I figured I’d try to sell as much of it as I could and hope that it would bring me close to 1000 dollars.

Sunday arrived and in the end I had enough cookies to cover the entire surface of a 3 x 7 foot table a foot high in cookies and when I loaded up the car at the end of the morning all that remained were two plates of cookies and eight tubes of Sweetie Bites. The amount raised in less than 30 minutes following Sunday morning worship before I paddled off to teach my preschool Sunday School class?

1004 dollars. As of today 10,316 dollars.

From the early days of his own diagnosis, my brother Randy encouraged our family to do what we could to make a difference for others living with ALS. Even though ALS was devastating his own body and would soon end his life he felt he had it “easier” that others because he had the financial means to get the best of care and a huge circle of love and support in family and friends. He knew others had less than he did. Less money. Less support. More challenges. And so he encouraged us to do something to help others on the same journey as he was on. Raise money. Spread awareness. Just do something to help someone else and that’s what I’m trying to do with Sweet Hope to just do something to make a little difference for someone else, one cookie at a time.

Having said all that. . .

Thank you . . . to everyone who has ever donated to the ALS Association through Sweet Hope Cookies.

Thank you . . . to everyone who has offered an encouraging word to me in my cookie decorating efforts.

Thank you . . . to every cookie decorator I’ve learned from and continue to learn from.

Thank you . . . to my dear spouse who has never waned in her support of my endeavors, putting up with stacks of cookies on our dining room table, never complaining about cookie dough on the refrigerator door, and smiling every time another delivery of cookie cutters arrived at our door.

Thank you . . . to the ALS Association for doing everything possible and then more for those living with ALS and their families.

And most of all,

Thank you . . . Randy. Miss you. Love you. Will continue doing something just like I promised.

While I go blow my nose, here are some photos of the Valentine’s cookies that brought the first year of Sweet Hope Cookies to a sweet conclusion.

Posted in ALS, Cookies, Randy, Valentine Day