Home, Sweet Home: Cookie Platoon ensures that troops and veterans can get a taste of home

The meeting room at Deep River Ambulance Headquarters is overflowing with people. On a recent chilly January morning, volunteers are sorting the inventory, filling plastic containers and attaching mailing labels to red and white priority mail boxes.

Mothers are talking to their daughters, and Boy and Girl Scout leaders are advising their young charges. Off in one corner, Debbie Schaefer is quietly consoling a local mom, who in a few days would see her only child, Steven, leave for Georgia to begin training as a U.S. Army medic.

"It's OK," Schaefer says to Lori Guerette of Deep River, who was trying to hold back tears. "I didn't have anyone, so I don't want you to not have anyone.

"Just go in the shower, turn it on and let it all out. No one will hear you and when you come out with red eyes, they will think it's just from the water," Schaefer added.

Seems like practical advice from one military mom to another. But as Schaefer knows (two of her three sons are enlisted), the initial training is just the beginning of what could be a long, and oftentimes stressful, military life.

To break up the monotony, most soldiers welcome any kind of correspondence from home - be it letters, cards or - especially - care packages. So amid the tears on this Saturday morning, there are plenty of cookies.

Dozens and dozens of them. Hundreds of dozens of oatmeal, chocolate chip and sugar cookies in all of their home-baked glory.

The treats are shipped to active duty, recovering and military veterans all over the world through the Connecticut Cookie Platoon, a nonprofit organization started nearly four years ago when Schaefer's eldest son enlisted.

The Jan. 30 packing party at the ambulance headquarters was scheduled to ensure the latest batches were delivered by Valentine's Day. The last event was held in late November so the cookies could be delivered by Christmas.

"Because there are so many mail restrictions, we don't do a shipment in December," explains Schaefer, a Deep River resident.

But not every cookie passes the test.

First, they have to be homemade, not store-bought. And the finished product must be 2 inches in diameter.

Why? Too small and they aren't worth eating; too big and they don't fit in the small plastic containers used for shipping. And you can forget about the broken ones.

"Debbie refuses to send them," says Elaine Poplawski, who with her boyfriend, John "Mad Dog" Scanlon, was manning the boxing/labeling table. They are usually the recipients of the unworthy goods.

Schaefer oversees a clearly defined system. She spends the Friday before the Saturday morning packing parties, which typically occur once a month, on the road, traveling to pick up cookies from some of the 60 to 70 regular bakers who volunteer their services.

When she arrives at the packing site on Saturday morning, it's usually with a box of coffee in hand, along with shipping boxes, labels, plastic containers, plastic wrap and tons and tons of plastic gloves.

"We're sending homemade cookies, not germs," she says, matter-of-factly. "If a kid is in here sneezing, I send them home."

She arranges long conference tables into a square, so people dropping off cookies and those helping pack the shipments have space to work. On this day, Guerette dropped off seven dozen chocolate chip cookies.

"It's just comfort food," she says. "Steven loves the fudge ones and he also likes my rolls, but those are best on day one."

Schaefer likes the soldiers to feel special when they open their packages, so she gives the volunteers explicit instructions on how they should be stacked.

"Wax paper is a priority. You line the cookies up on their sides with the paper in between, so it looks nice and pretty and the cookies don't stick together," she says.

Bozutto's, which owns the Adam's grocery stores throughout New England, has donated a year's worth of containers and wrap. Each container holds 15 to 16 cookies.

Once the mailing boxes are filled, they are taken to the Chester post office. From there, the shipment takes five days for delivery to Afghanistan; six to seven days to Iraq.

On this day, 100 soldiers were expected to receive more than five dozen cookies apiece.

"I don't know where all of these are going, but it's just a piece of home," Guerette says. "It's special for them, that somebody spent the time and love (to bake)."