Bake a batch of cookies for your area police office, fire department and hospital. Call Chaplain Jenny Covington at 254-644-0408 or Chaplain Jack Covington at 254-644-2342 for specific drop-off locations.

--

Calling all bakers: The First Responders Fellowship of Belton needs cookies.

They crave the yummy morsels not for themselves, but for area firefighters, police officers and paramedics - the people who face tragedy, emergency and death everyday.

“It’s in honor of Patriot Day, the holiday that commemorates 9/11,” said Chaplain Jack Covington of the First Responders Fellowship. “We want to show the area’s first responders that we all appreciate the hard job they do.”

But to treat Bell County’s emergency personnel to a batch of homemade cookies, the Fellowship will need the community’s help.

“We ask that everybody bake some cookies and then deliver it to their area hospital, police station or fire department, both professional and volunteer,” Covington said. “Then call us and tell us where the cookies were delivered, and we’ll mark it off our list. We’ll get cookies to whomever is left over.”

Cookie drop-off sites will include the Hillcrest Clinic in Belton, the Department of Public Safety, the Bell County Sheriff’s Office and all of the departments within Scott & White and King’s Daughters Hospitals.

This is the Fellowship’s third annual cookie project, but it’s the first year to try this delivery process. In past years, the Fellowship was responsible for all of the distribution efforts.

“But with the county so big, the logistics of that didn’t really work out,” Covington said. “So this year, we’re trying this to see if it will generate more deliveries.”

Several participants from last year’s cookie project are eager to start baking again.

“My husband is the assistant chief for a volunteer fire department, so I think it’s important to do things like this,” said Bonnie Bumpus. “We’ll always remember the events of 9/11 and its heroes.”

Shawn Hilton says baking cookies is the least she can do to support the Fellowship’s mission.

“It’s a good, easy way to show that we appreciate the police and the fire department and everything they do for Central Texas,” Ms. Hilton said.

Covington and his wife, Jenny, created the 9/11 cookie project while serving as chaplains for the First Responders Fellowship of Belton, a 5-year-old ministry that provides counseling and spiritual guidance to emergency personnel.

--tlunsford@temple-telegram.com