Churches donate dozens of Christmas cookies

Since the early 1990s, local churches have collected homemade cookies to share with the Maryville Treatment Center residents.

The cookies collected are also shared with community service organizations such as the police and fire department, ambulance district and the hospital.

Each November, churches are contacted and asked to donate homemade cookies of any kind. Church members then volunteer to bake a variety of cookies with the total number collected ranging from 222 dozen, or 2,664 cookies, collected this year up to 366 dozen one year.

Churches that have volunteered include Bethany Christian Church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Countryside Christian Church, First Christian Church, First Presbyterian Church, First United Methodist Church, Laura Street Baptist Church and St. Gregory Barbarigo Parish.

Once the cookies are collected, children, youth and adults gather to assemble six cookies per bag for each resident which are then delivered the week before Christmas.

“The thank you letters we get from the treatment center are so heartwarming,” Shirley Barnett, FUMC Children, Youth and Family Ministry director, said.