People select Christmas cookies at the Grand Island Area Habitat for Humanity Christmas cookie walk Dec. 8 at St. Pauls Lutheran Church, (Carol Bryant, Central Nebraska Today)
GRAND ISLAND – Grand Island Area Habitat for Humanity hosted its annual Christmas cookie walk in the afternoon Dec. 8 at St. Pauls Lutheran Church.
The best news was that participants were able to return to a pre-COVID practice: they could pick out what cookies they wanted, with plastic gloves provided. After COVID started, Habitat for Humanity discontinued the practice of picking out cookies and instead sold cookies in Styrofoam containers.
Christy Hewitt is a volunteer for Grand Island Area Habitat for Humanity and serves on the fund-raising committee. She said that originally, about 4,500 cookies were donated. They were set out on Dec. 8. The day before the event, an “SOS” message was sent to get more cookies. An estimated 90 people baked cookies for the event.
Three rows of banquet tables were set up in the gym in the church’s Family Life Center. Cookies were arranged in patterns on the tables, which were set up to almost cover the length of the gym. After selecting cookies that were placed in a Styrofoam container, participants went to a table where the cookie container was weighed. The cost for a pound of cookies was $8.
Hewitt said that the Christmas cookie walk is one of Habitat for Humanity’s largest fund-raisers for the year. She said that she has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for about 15 years. The nonprofit agency’s largest fund-raiser is the Build a Dream fundraiser in February, which is a dinner and auction.
Just about every kind of cookie you could think of had been baked for the Dec. 9 event. Frosted sugar cookies, gingersnaps, peanut butter/chocolate kiss cookies, peanut butter/chocolate balls, and snickerdoodles were among the cookies available.
