PROJECT COOKIE

Culinary students volunteer time to craft goodies for soldiers overseas

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Nothing says the holidays like fresh-baked cookies. That's why students at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary College in Summerlin baked 4,000 cookies and sent them to Nellis Air Force Base airmen and airwomen stationed in Iraq.

The effort began when Pam Hrabosky, who regularly sends items overseas via Soldiers' Angels, learned that Nellis Family Services was looking for people to send cookies to those serving in Iraq.

Soldiers' Angels is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing support in the form of letters, packages and gifts to American servicemen and women serving throughout the world.

Hrabosky asked friends and neighbors to pitch in and help. One of her friends is Russell Redfeather, a chef on the Strip who graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, Calif.

"He said, 'Why don't we contact Le Cordon Bleu here in Vegas, I'll bet they'll help out,' " Hrabosky said. "And that's how it all got started."

Chef Robert Cano and fellow instructor chef Brenda Villatoro took on the task and worked out the logistics. Supplies were donated by Sysco and Praml.

With a core group of eight students, they set about making the cookies. The task spanned two weeks and included 45 participants. All the students volunteered their time.

Ginny Chapman, 35, and Anthony Augustine, 18, were among the core volunteers. Both said they hoped the soldiers enjoyed their efforts and the good feelings sent along with the cookies.

Michael La Placa, 22, has a Nellis friend who was previously in Iraq.

"When I told him what we were doing, he said it was great because (when he was stationed there) he didn't hear from a lot of people," La Placa said. "He said to receive something like this would give them a pep, let them know that people at home really care what they're doing."

Most of the cookies were sugar cookies, cut out in the shapes of Christmas trees, angels and candy canes. The Otis Spunkmeyer company donated cookie dough with flavors such as peanut butter, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin and some with Reese's Pieces inside.

Katie Archer-Burton, 18, was busy painting a snowman. Painting on color with an egg wash was preferred for decorating, as regular frosting would require special packaging to avoid cracking.

"We used to do this (as kids) with my grandmother in California," she said as she dotted buttons on her snowmen cookies.

Archer-Burton and her fellow high school students sent anonymous notes to soldiers. As she gestured to the pans of dough ready to pop into the industrial ovens and the scores of students bent over their work tables, she said, "It was nothing like this."

Some of the cookies were decorated as soldiers in fatigues.

"It's a nice personal touch," Cano said. "We couldn't do 'flow icing' where you pipe the border then use a thinner color to (fill in the area). It would take a day or two just to dry and, besides, we didn't have the room."

Boxes were stacked up at one end of the kitchen with neon "fragile" stickers attached. The students added their own decorations, writing messages like "We love you guys!" and "You're doing a great job -- thanks for your service."

Nearby was a pan of rejects. The cookies were basically fine, they just didn't meet decorating standards.

"One of my students went a little paint-crazy," Cano said.

The packages were taken directly to Nellis Air Force Base and were carried to the Middle East on military flights.