Love in Each Cookie
When Santina’s son, Justin, a small caliber ammunition quality manager with the Department of Defense, was deployed in Iraq, she asked him an innocent question that would change both of their lives. Had everyone in Justin’s deployment received care packages or letters in the mail?When Justin replied that many service members hadn’t, Santina knew she had to do something. “That was just in her nature,” Justin, now 37, told The Epoch Times.
When Santina got together with friends to bake cookies and mail essentials to Justin’s deployment, Cookies for the Troops was born. A shipment arrived in Iraq later that year, full of home-baked cookies and toiletries that were hard to find abroad.
In 2008, a few hundred more cookies were mailed to other service members.
“As time progressed, people began giving names to my mother to send packages to,” Justin said.
His Mother’s Legacy
Sadly, Santina passed away in 2019 after a five-year battle with breast cancer. Her children—Justin and his sister, Taylor Dubard—were heartbroken. Justin believed he could honor his mother’s legacy by continuing Cookies for the Troops. He moved the baking location to his home in Knowlton, New Jersey.
“We still have the same goals, the same love, and the same essentials packed in, but the cookie bake is now held at my house—the original recipient. [It’s come] almost full circle, back to continuing my mother’s legacy,” Justin said.
Typically, the cookies are baked only one day each year: the second Saturday after Thanksgiving. Volunteers set up Justin’s home for the cookie bake and help clean up afterward. The process involves a mixing station, cookie tray station, baking station, cooling station, and a counting-and-separating station.
“My family and the other board members of [Cookies for the Troops], who might as well be family at this point, have kept this initiative going,” Justin said. “Because, of all of them, on the day of the bake, I get to experience the love my mother truly had for others and her selflessness, even though she is no longer with us.”
A Growing Mission Fueled by Support
To ensure a loved one or friend in the military receives cookies, simply visit the Cookies for the Troops Facebook page and provide a name and address.“We will do our best to ensure we get cookies out to them,” Flynn said, though he notes that it may not be possible to reach everyone because of the volume of demand. Cookies for Troops has been trying its best to accommodate the growing need.
To support the mission, Flynn encourages people to follow Cookies for the Troops on social media and consider making a “Box Sponsorship.” “Our Box Sponsorships help cover the cost of shopping, supplies for baking, and the purchase of toiletries we send out,” he said. “That is our biggest hurdle in everything we do.”
Though Santina is no longer with us, her legacy lives on—both within her son’s kitchen in Knowlton, New Jersey, and in places far, far away. Seeing the pictures that recipients abroad post of their units with the cookies warms Justin’s heart.
“I know firsthand how much it can affect morale while deployed,” Justin said. “My mother knew that too, and I believe that’s why this has become her legacy.”