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Cookie, anyone?
If you're in the mood for a great cookie, or chocolate, or treat for a furry friend — and who isn't? — mark your calendar for a visit to Grandma's Homemade Favorites 14th Annual Cookie and Gift Sale.Slated for Dec. 11 and 12 at the Warrenton Community Center on East Shirley Avenue, the sale features an almost endless array of mouthwatering treats. And enjoying such delicacies is perfectly justifiable since the proceeds go to a good cause.
The sale is the brainchild of Molly Snurr, program director for the Warrenton Adult Day Care Program, and was created to supplement funding for the program, which provides activities for frail senior citizens and individuals with Alzheimer's or other dementias.
Licensed by the state and approved to accept Medicaid, the program offers opportunities for these seniors to socialized outside of their homes and interact with others in a safe and nurturing environment while also providing caregivers — usually the adult children of their clients — with support and daytime assistance so that they can balance care of their parents with other responsibilities, Snurr explained.
Started in February 1990 and operated by the Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services Board, the adult day care program was sorely needed in Fauquier County. In the late 1980s, “the Fauquier Long Term Care Committee recognized that many families were trying to balance jobs, child care and care of their parents and were in need of daytime assistance,” said program volunteer Mary Battaglia. “While adult day care programs existed in other parts of Virginia, very few were located in rural areas or small towns such as Warrenton.”
Initially housed at Shadow Lawn on Culpeper Street with the Senior Nutrition Program, the program was started through a grant from the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association, which was particularly interested in supporting people with Alzheimer's, Battaglia explained. After a year or so, the program expanded to include frail elderly clients as well as those with dementia and, in 2003, it moved to its new, larger location on East Shirley Avenue.
“We have to fight for adult day care,” Snurr said, noting that tight budgets are a fact of for the program. “As you get older, you realize that if we don't fight for senior programs now, there's not going to be anything there when we get there. There's so much need out there, more need than I can handle. People are struggling, trying to take care of their loved ones.”
Limited to 12 participants at a time, the program relies on federal, state, and local funding as well as other resources, like the United Way and charitable donations. At the helm since the beginning, Snurr has found creative ways to develop additional funding for the program.
The most delicious of those is next week's cookie sale.
“I don't like sending out letters asking for money. [The cookie sale] has been a good way to provide money. It has really funded a lot,” she said, noting that the sale typically brings in between $4,000 and $5,000 year. “It's wonderful for good will in the community and advertising for the program. It's really worthwhile. We've thought about not doing it and people say, 'don't stop.'”
A home economics major who worked for 10 years in a nursing home and for three years with mentally ill patients, Snurr was working for RRCSB when the program was started and got the nod to be its first director.
“At my previous three jobs, I'd started new programs and I liked going that,” she recalled. “This is such a small program. It's struggle to survive. People don't pay attention to you until they need you.”
It was, in fact, that effort to stimulate public awareness that launched the cookie sale. For the first year or two, the program's two-person staff and volunteers created a flier and accepted orders for cookies.
Thinking it might be nice to have the community come in to the program's building, Snurr began hosting the cookie party at Shadow Lawn on Culpeper Street.
“It got so big that we had to put all of the furniture upstairs or outside in a truck,” Snurr said.
With newfound space at the Community Center, the festivities have been cranked up a notch. There will be holiday decorations and music, Snurr said, and a buffet will allow guests to sample cookies before making a selection. Coffee and punch will be available.
The main event, though, is the food.
“We've been baking since October,” Snurr said. “We probably have eight freezers full of cookies and doughs.”
The undertaking requires not only tremendous work, but loads of planning. Some items are made well in advance and frozen, while others must be made at the last minute, Snurr explained.
Snurr, who gave up a recent weekend to create 700 chocolate turtles and so many chocolate covered cherries that she lost count, said that about 14 volunteers have helped bake about 1,700 dozen cookies in 14 varieties. Along with candies and pet treats, volunteers have assembled bags of oyster crackers and Chex mix. Last week, a group worked to create chocolate covered marshmallows (with sprinkles) on sticks while a box of chocolate covered pretzels rested nearby.
“Everybody is facing the crunch and we know that some people are not going to spend a lot of money,” Snurr said, noting that cookies typically cost $3.50 to $3.57 a dozen, but some varieties are more expensive. Trays with assorted cookies (which can be frozen and brought out to serve for the holidays) run the gamut from $12 to $40, she said.
With a loyal following, the cookie sale is a mad house Thursday evening, Snurr said, noting that the doors are closed and locked at 3 p.m. in preparation for the 4 p.m. opening. The line is typically long, she added.
“Some people come in and know exactly what they want and they go straight to it,” she said. “Each year we eliminate a cookie or add a cookie. Sometimes we get complaints about that. This year we won't have chocolate crinkles. They're not big sellers, but someone will come in specifically looking for that cookie.”
Doors open at the sale at 4 p.m. Dec. 11. The sale runs from 4-8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11 and from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, Dec. 12. For more information, call (540) 347-2797.
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