EDWARDS AFB – Like a well-oiled machine, the Edwards Officers’ Spouses Club packed around 3,600 cookies into decorated brown paper last week. The annual Airman’s Holiday Cookie Drive, sponsored by the First Sergeants Council, was a community effort to ensure that nearly 300 Airmen living in the dorms got a taste of home for the holiday season.
More than 40 volunteer bakers began bringing their cookie donations to the Airman and Family Readiness Center Dec. 3. Trays of chocolate chip cookies, snicker doodles, oatmeal and sugar cookies were delivered all day long. The next morning, the EOSC got to work packing a dozen cookies into each paper bag.
The bags were decorated by children in the youth programs on base and delivered by the first sergeants to the dorm-dwellers.
Spouses Debbie Brewer and Caroline Bunch, look forward to the cookie drive each year.
“This is potentially Caroline’s and my last cookie drive,” said Brewer. “We’ll move to a base where we may be able to help, we might not. To be able to do this is a privilege and it’s one of the things that I’ll miss as we leave this base.”
“It’s important for the Airmen because they might not be able to travel home for Christmas, or any holiday, so this is just a way to say, ‘thank you.’ And it’s home-baked, they [Airmen] like home baked stuff,” added Bunch.
As she baked, Brewer listened to Christmas carols with her tree lit up in the background.
“I thought, ‘this is how you know the season is starting, particularly the season on Edwards,'” said Brewer. “This is for the young people and I think a lot of times the young people in the Air Force don’t get enough credit. They are out there doing great things for the Air Force and this is just a little way that all of us can acknowledge that, ‘you’re important to us. You may not get home to your mom to make you cookies, or your dad or your family members, but someone here who is part of the big Air Force family just did that for you.'”
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Terry says
VERY COOL!!!!! Please let me know if you are going to do it again next year as I would LOVE to help!! My sincerest wishes for a HAPPY, SAFE and BLESSED holiday season!!