Bakery sends cookies to troops overseas
Nancy B’s Bakery has been donating cookies to troops overseas for 20 years, but customers recently started pitching in.
A small bakery in Pennsylvania that's been sending cookies to military members overseas for 20 years hopes to send a record number of cookies in 2018.
“I always had a soft spot for the boys over there,” Nancy Bertram of Nancy B’s Bakery in Pittsburgh told Fox News.
Nancy Bertram of Nancy B's Bakery in Pittsburgh said she started sending cookies to troops stationed overseas in 1990. “I always had a soft spot for the boys over there,” she tells Fox News.
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Bertram and her son, Michael Runco, say they expect to send at least 200 dozen cookies this year, triple the amount they sent in 2017.
The idea started in 1990 when family members requested cookies for their son who was based in Iraq while serving in the Army, Bertram told Fox News. Years later, the serviceman drove from his new home in Michigan to the Pittsburgh bakery.
“I couldn’t get over the fact that he drove...from there to here just to say 'thank you,’” Runco says.
Nancy and her son, Michael Runco, estimate that they'll send at least 200 dozen cookies overseas in 2018.
Since then, the bakery has been sending cookies every year, on its own dime, Bertram told Fox News.
“You would think you’re giving them a million dollars and it's just cookies,” she said of the response, adding that many service members send photos of the cookies from wherever they’re based.
Nancy B’s Bakery cookies have reached Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, among other places. The destinations are based on phone requests and in-person requests by people who know someone serving abroad. At least five dozen cookies can fit in each box, enough for several members stationed at a base, they say.
Nancy says customers have now caught on to the bakery’s efforts and have pitched in for the shipping, which they say can cost anywhere between $25 and $35 per box.
“People come in and put money in a tip jar,” she says.
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It can take three weeks for a shipment to reach a base in Afghanistan, Nancy says, but she says her cookies can stay fresh for up to six weeks.
“Afghanistan seems so far and everything but it came out really good,” she told Fox News of a previous cookie delivery.
Bertram's cookies have reached Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates, among other places. She says customers often offer to help her cover the cost shipping.
Nancy and her son say they want to expand their cookie deliveries this year because they say everyone knows someone serving overseas.
“You gotta do something good, you know,” Nancy said.
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