Cookie Factory feeds midshipmen, raises funds

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (UMNS) — This is not your ordinary church bake sale. Members of Calvary United Methodist Church here are known for doing things in a big - and delectable - way. "Wouldn't be anything without chocolate chips," said Jean Graf, mixing the dough at Calvary's Cookie Factory in the church kitchen. For the past 25 years, the church's youth group and adult volunteers have gathered one Saturday a month to bake chocolate chip cookies - satisfying the hunger pangs of midshipmen at the nearby U.S. Naval Academy and raising money for mission trips. Members of parents' groups from across the country, and other friends of the midshipmen, order the cookies by the dozen for delivery to the Naval Academy. Cookies are sent as birthday and holiday gifts or for sugary energy boosts during exams.