Photo By Senior Airman Donald Knechtel | Cookies are collected and bagged for Airmen assigned to Ellsworth Air Force Base...... read more read more
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For five years, the Enlisted Spouses' Club, and the Officer and Civilian Spouses' Club have hosted the annual Holiday Cookie Drive, collecting cookies for Airmen who are unable to go home for the holidays. Gathering donations from the local community and baking tasty treats themselves, these spouses bring holiday cheer to Airmen one cookie at a time.
The presidents for both ESC and OCSC, Chasity Mitchell and Regina Staufer, along with their dedicated members, and Rapid City donated, collected, and baked more than 10,400 cookies for Ellsworth Airmen, from Dec. 12 to 14, 2016, surpassing their goal of 10,000, doubling that of last year’s goal of 5,000 cookies.
“This event is held annually to benefit our Airmen residing in the dorms each year during the holiday season,” Mitchell said. “We are trying to spread some holiday cheer and stuff them with goodies.”
Spouses worked together to bake, sort and package the sweet treats to prepare for delivery.
"Basically how we do this cookie drive is we have four days of donations,” Mitchell said. “What really helped us this year are our ESC and OCSC volunteers, who braved the cold and went out into the community to gather donations and together within two days we got over five thousand cookies, just from the community coming in.”
With the cookies bagged and ready, the spouses go out to make a delivery. Much like Santa sliding down the chimney, putting gifts under trees, they stride down the hallways leaving gifts by the Airmen’s doors.
“This is important for the Airmen in the dorms, whether they can’t get home to their family, they don’t have leave or it’s just not financially possible,” said Cindy Boswell, spouse of Col. Gentry Boswell, commander of the 28th Bomb Wing. “It just spreads a little bit of cheer this time of year and lets them know from us [spouses] that we appreciate what you do.”
The hard work these spouses dedicate to the Airmen show their love for their Air Force family.
“They [The Airmen] are the backbone of Ellsworth, we realize that and that’s part of why we do this,” Boswell said. “We appreciate them and want them to feel loved and it’s an honor to do this for them.”
| Date Taken: | 12.20.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 12.20.2016 17:49 |
| Story ID: | 218313 |
| Location: | SOUTH DAKOTA, US |
| Web Views: | 41 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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