Holiday cookies help create sense of home for dorm residents Published Dec. 15, 2010 By Kate Blais 95th Air Base Wing Public Affaris EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Like a well-oiled machine, over 30 volunteers worked a cookie assembly line, sorting, packing and stacking dozens of homemade cookies on trays as part of the Airman and Family Readiness Center's annual Dorm Dweller's Cookie Drive, Dec. 8. Members of the Edwards community were invited to bake as many homemade goodies as they wished - whatever they felt they could do. The response from the base was well above what was asked. Volunteer cookie bakers exceeded the original goal of 465 dozen cookies by baking more than 700 dozen cookies, which were placed on trays, bagged and then packed into large brown paper bags. The bags were addressed to each squadron on base and distributed to Airmen living in the dorms by each first sergeant. The cookie bags contained five trays of 24 cookies each. "I think that this event shows our appreciation for the troops," said Tonya Eckles, Community Readiness consultant at the AFRC. "Sometimes it's the first base for the Airmen and this helps create a sense of home when they're away from their families around the holidays." Tech. Sgt. James Graves, 412th Flight Test Squadron, said his wife wanted to make cookies after hearing his stories of life in the dorms as a new Airman. "My wife made cinnamon swirl cookies," Sergeant Graves said. "When I first came into the Air Force I lived in the dorms, so she knows how it is." The volunteers spent the morning packaging thousands of baked goods which were ready for pick-up by each first sergeant from the First Sergeants' Association by lunch time. "Parents are not around to provide for them," said Senior Airman Melissa Charles, 95th Aerospace Medicine Squadron, of the single Airmen living in the dorms. "It's not that they have no family during the holidays, just a different type of family."