The Sweetness of Giving

By Allie Berg, 
Twin Cities Habitat Staff 

‘Tis the season for shopping, spending time with friends and family, traveling, cleaning, decorating and … baking! With the busyness of the holidays, it’s hard to squeeze in everything and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
One middle school group in Hosanna! Lutheran Church’s Student Ministries in Lakeville, MN found a way to combine spending time together with giving back to their community! Powerlife Group 212 chose to spend their annual holiday party this year in service: by writing cards to men and women in the United States Military and by baking and decorating cookies for Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity’s volunteers.

Kali, Avery, Ashely and Lauren writing cards to men and women in the service.

Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity engages over 17,000 volunteers each year in its mission and work for affordable housing. One small way to show appreciation for the time and energy given by volunteers is to deliver cookies to those on site building or repairing homes or to the ReStore where volunteers take in and organize donations and assist customers with their purchases. That’s a lot of cookies!

Madi, Kaylee, Rhubee and Tori decorating cookies for TCHFH volunteers.

Powerlife Group 212 knew Habitat’s cookie need was great, so the group members ambitiously baked and decorated 4 dozen cookies for Habitat volunteers while listening to carols, drinking hot chocolate and catching up on life. The students felt the activities put them in the giving spirit and reminded them how good it feels to help others. Ashely said, “when I decorated the cookies and wrote the cards it made me feel happy knowing I made someone else’s day.”

Powerlife Group 212 members: Allie, Jaelyn, Mallory, Kaitlyn, Tori, Madi, Lauren, Avery, Corinna, Kali, Rhubee, Kaylee and Ashley

For those already baking sweets, baking a few extra dozen cookies for Habitat volunteers is an easy way to combine your holiday traditions with giving back to the community. Kaylee said, “making the cookies made me feel like I was making cookies for my loved ones this holiday season to show them thanks for all they do.”
Inspired by Powerlife Group 212’s service project and want to bake cookies for Habitat volunteers? Cookie bakers are asked to make two or more dozen cookies as often as they would like and deliver them to the TCHFH office. The cookies are then delivered to our on-site volunteers to thank them for their service or used at other special events. Please make sure to label the cookies with your name so we know who to thank and to drop them off in a container that you don’t need back. The volunteer team is incredibly grateful for all of the cookie bakers whose donations keep our volunteers happy. For more information, contact Anne Meyers-Welsch at anne.meyers-welsch@tchabitat.org or 612-305-7162.