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Creative Forming Inc. Donates Product To Cookie Brigade |
Tonya Barnett Alling (left) and Karen Sullivan Hoch (right), both of Ripon, Wis., reaffirmed the city’s title as “Cookie Town USA” when they organized a holiday season Cookie Brigade that collected 12,000 cookies for Wisconsin soldiers serving in Iraq.
What began as an idea between the two women turned into a community-wide endeavor that resulted in more than one-dozen cookies for each of the 630 soldiers serving in the 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry of the Wisconsin-based 32nd Infantry Brigade. Also known as the “Red Arrow Brigade.” The 32nd Infantry is the state’s largest Army National Guard unit.
“We were discussing the fact that so many people we knew in the community knew soldiers serving over there who were getting ready for holidays. One thing led to another and next thing you know I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if they could all have Christmas cookies since they can’t be home?’ ” says Hoch, who owns a small trucking company operated out of her home.
When it came time for setting the idea in motion, the Cookie Brigade became bigger than either woman imagined.
“We decided it was something we couldn’t do on our own,” says Alling, owner of Alling Enterprises, a graphic arts business.
Alling and Hoch called friends and asked each to be responsible for baking or collecting 10 dozen cookies. Coverage in the local newspaper and announcements on the local radio station increased public awareness of the need for cookies, and the momentum continued to build.
Although they don’t know the exact number of individuals who baked cookies, Alling estimates it was between 100 and 150.
In late November the cookies were collected in the basement of Ripon’s First Congregational United Church of Christ.
“The church kitchen was stacked with boxes and boxes and boxes of cookies,” Alling says.
The sight was one Hoch will never forget. “I had never seen so many cookies. I’m amazed that just through word of mouth we could come up with so many,” Hoch says. “It was overwhelming.”
And, they say, there was every kind of cookie imaginable: chocolate chip, sugar, almond, coconut, chocolate, spice drop, M&M, and cutouts, to name only a few of the approximately 12,000 cookies donated.
Once the cookies were compiled at the church, between 20 and 30 volunteers filled zipper bags with the tasty treats and packaged them for shipment.
“Each soldier received a variety. We figured they could trade if they got something that they didn’t like,” Hoch says with a chuckle.
As with the baking, shipping the cookies was made possible by a responsive and generous community.
“Everything we could have possibly wanted was donated,” Alling says.
Presto Products Co. of Appleton, Wis., supplied the zipper food storage bags. Creative Forming of Ripon donated freshlock plastic containers and corrugated boxes for shipping the goodies abroad.
“We didn’t pay for anything,” Hoch says. “The only things that were paid for were the ingredients that the bakers had for their cookies. Everything else was donated.”
On the day of shipping, the post office opened an hour early to process the packages. “They sent trucks over to pick up the boxes, too,” Hoch says. In addition to donations for packaging, she and Alling also relied on donations to cover the cost of shipping. “We had asked people who couldn’t bake if they would consider monetary donations,” Alling says.
The pair asked for at least $500 in donations and were overwhelmed when they brought in approximately $1,200. The surplus funds were put into the Red Arrow Brigade Fund, which pays for monthly care packages sent to the soldiers.
In a letter addressed to Alling and Hoch, 1st Sergeant Richard Clay of the Red Arrow Brigade writes, “It’s citizens like you that make our country a great place to live and us proud to serve. Thanks for your support.”
“It was really inspiring,” Alling says. “It was such a community effort, and it was such a heart-warming thing to do around Christmastime because it showed how much the community cares.”
Though Alling and Hoch say they have no immediate plan to undertake such an endeavor again, they are open to the possibility in the future.
“If we saw that there was a need or if somebody came to us and asked us to help organize something, I’d do it again, in a heartbeat,” Alling says. “The experience itself was such a good feeling — to know we were doing something nice for people who are sacrificing for us.”
Story and Photo Reproduced with permission from Ripon Magazine - A Ripon College Publication.
About Creative Forming, Inc.
Located in Ripon, WI, Creative Forming and its extrusion division ALPHATEC EXTRUSION®, offer state-of-the-art extrusion expertise and custom thermoforming solutions to the consumer products, food packaging, and food service industries throughout the United States.
For more information, please contact:
Marc DeGroot
Creative Forming, Inc.
100 Creative Way
Ripon, WI 54971
(920) 748-7285