By Harriet Howard Heithaus
Naples Daily
NORTH NAPLES, Fla. — When firefighter-paramedics opened the door of Station No. 46 in North Naples on Tuesday, they found themselves looking at Christmas cookie heaven. Delivered by a Bunny. For Thanksgiving.
It wasn't a season warp. The cookie cache was being brought to them by Bunny Brooks, a Vineyards resident and board member of the Collier County 100 Club, part of a national organization that supports firefighter, paramedic and police families.
Brooks was making the first delivery of a route to 48 stations that house police officers, sheriff's deputies and firefighters, to be finished, with the help of three other drivers, by sometime Friday. The mission: a sweet thank-you to first responders.
"They put their lives on the line for us," declared Brooks, who says she's outraged by the current targeting of first responders, whose work is to help their communities. ”Thank you, gentlemen, for all you do for us."
She had visited a friend in Michigan who was baking cookies for Grosse Pointe police, and the inspiration came to Brooks to try it here. She began by suggesting it to her fellow 100 Club board members, then to the women's golf league in the Vineyards.
Then the Vineyards activity director asked if she could email it out to the entire community. And several of Brooks’ friends in her DAR chapter asked if they could bake, too.
By Tuesday afternoon the counters of the Regency Reserve clubhouse at the Vineyards were heaped with plates, tins and trays of cookies, probably more than 100 dozen sweet contributions.
Brooks had already created a number of assortment plates — several chocolate chip cookies, a frosted Christmas tree, perhaps several brownies, Italian wedding cakes, pizzelles, snickerdoodles — when she decided to inaugurate the journey with a stop at her own fire station.
By all accounts, it was a welcome one.
“We don’t usually get as many of these as other stations that are more centrally located,” said Capt. Ryan Paige, the foremost of a quartet of beaming firefighters.
“I’m the official cookie taster,” firefighter Daniel Jackson teased his benefactor, ready to sample his second cookie. He would get no argument from fellow firefighter Victor Yedra.
“I’m a brownie guy,” he explained. For Chris Perry, the fourth firefighter to dig into the cache of cookies, it was all good: “Sugar!” he exulted.
It was clear the homemade sweets were a hit. “Sometimes people don’t know the services are even out there,” Paige said.
That’s exactly what Brooks is hoping to combat. Back in the club kitchen, fragrant with the scent of cinnamon, vanilla and spices, Brooks said she is hoping some other organizations in Naples will join her to make sure their police, deputies and firefighters aren’t forgotten until there’s a tragedy they must attend to — or that has involved their own fellow responders.
Tuesday evening she would be busy repackaging cookies into assortments that would offer something for everyone in each station, and the variety was going to make it a challenge.
Brooks picked up a little sugar cookie in the shape of a hand, dusted with rosy sugar and dots of cinnamon imperial “nail polish.” “Isn’t that clever?” she said. “Some of the women actually used recipes from the cookbook of Vineyards community favorites.”
One had carefully specified “chocolate chip, no nuts,” for those with allergies. Green coconut wreaths and white frosted pumpkin cookies added to the fragrance. Against the backsplash stood a fresh glazed Bundt cake from a woman who didn’t bake cookies but wanted to help.
Chocolate chip were by far the favored offering.
“They’re the firemen’s favorite,” she said, adding with a chuckle. “Well, at least they are this time.”
Part of the challenge of dividing up the cookies was knowing how many first responders and support staff were at each station. At Station No. 46, for example, there were five or six employees, Brooks explained. At the county Sheriff’s Office in the government complex, however, there are 180 employees.
Brooks and three volunteer drivers would sort out routes and start driving Wednesday morning, Thanksgiving morning — and even Friday morning, if necessary.
“We’ll drive until we get to everybody,” Brooks declared. “Or until we run out of cookies.”
More information about Brooks’ cookie organization can be obtained by submitting the contact form on the collier100club.org website.
Copyright 2016 the Naples Daily News
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