It's 'a piece of home' for the holidays, says the Hackettstown grandmother who started it.
Santina Flynn baked a few thousand cookies last weekend, with some help.
Her Hackettstown house became a care package assembly line as 2,803 cookies were boxed with seasonal decorations and child-made cards, destined for soldiers and Marines away from home for the holidays.
The treats provide them "a little piece of home," Flynn said a few days after the Cookies for the Troops bake-off -- which has become a Saturday-after-Thanksgiving tradition, one that started when Flynn's son, Justin, joined the Marine Corps nine years ago.
Through him, Flynn said she learned that some in the military didn't get any mail around the holidays. "It broke my heart," she said.
The first year Flynn and a handful of other women made between 400 and 500 cookies, she said. Since then, word has spread and the operation has grown to some 20 people, including Flynn's grandchildren, filling the house and working in shifts to make sure every aspect from mixing to boxing is covered.
By when should you send Christmas cards?
She started a Facebook page to solicit cards and other trinkets to include in the packages and donations to send them, which Flynn said can cost up to $50 a parcel depending where they're being shipped.
Each package is sent to an individual service member, stocked with 10 to 12 dozen cookies -- in 15 varieties -- to share with their comrades. Also in the box: some tinsel, cards, magazines and a Santa hat for the recipient to hand out the goodies.
Flynn and another participant, Jaclyne Franciscone, estimated that between 250 and 300 servicemen get a piece of the treats.
Two years ago, Flynn said a soldier sent back a necklace with her initials and a note.
"'You have no idea what you did for the morale of my squad,'" Flynn recalled it saying. "That's why I do it, right there."
Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.