KR Homemade Cookies and more!

I first started baking cookies when I was a sophomore at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., for my high school sweetheart and now husband. He was a junior at VT majoring in architecture, which meant that he often worked on drawings and models all night long in Cowgill Hall. I thought my cookies might help, although perhaps the coffee he drank endlessly through the night helped more.

One truism has stuck with me through my whole life. I am called to help others as I would hope others would help me if I needed it. I invite you to live up to that truism, as well, by buying baked goods from KR Homemade Cookies and more! Read on to learn how your love of baked goodness can help others.

I started this online bakery, KR Cookies and more, during the midst of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. I found myself wanting to do something to be useful and helpful, but volunteering in person somewhere was not possible, because my husband has a compromised immune system due to cancer, and I just couldn’t risk getting sick myself or carrying the virus home to him.

I saw on Facebook that St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in the Springfield neighborhood of Jacksonville, Fla., where I have lived since 1978, needed donations of food for its food pantry. With the run on groceries due to everyone having to stay home and cook, the grocery stores were not able to donate surplus food like they had been doing.

I love to bake cookies. For me, it is the best mental and emotional therapy I’ve found. The act of putting the dough together, forming the cookies, watching them bake and then seeing them turn into perfect little sweet morsels is so satisfying for me. I confess that I always have to eat one from the first batch while it is still warm … and I always share one or two with my husband.

My real joy in baking comes from giving the cookies and other baked foods that I make away. So, I decided to start baking cookies each week for St. Mary’s food pantry to include with the bags of food it was giving to homeless and hungry families. I know that cookies aren’t essential and aren’t particularly nutritious, but I hoped they would be comforting and let the people, especially the children, know that someone cares about them and thinks they are special. Beth Tjoflat, the church’s vicar, tells me that she personally hands my bags of cookies out to families who she knows will appreciate them, and she says they are so pleasantly surprised to receive something homemade.

Out of that experience came my idea to start an online bakery. I hope that the sales from the bakery will at least cover my costs to bake cookies. Now that I am in North Carolina’s High Country for the foreseeable future, I am volunteering my time to bake cookies for Hospitality House in Boone, North Carolina. Take the time to learn more about Hospitality House’s efforts to help families transition from crisis to stability, from poverty to sustainability, and from homelessness to housing.

Concern for families needing our help, not personal profit, is the mission of KR Cookies and more. You can be a part, too! Order your baked goods now and know that you are receiving personally homemade goodness that is helping feed others.

Complete the form below, call/text 904.333.1151 or email karenjrieley@gmail.com to place your order.