Helping out one cookie at a time

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This article was published 19/08/2019 (2508 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A pair of bakery owners in Grant Park have perfected a recipe for giving back.

Since 2017, Aynsley Rosin and Krista Robertson, the owners of Sweet Impressions bakery, have donated over $26,000 to local grassroots charities through the sale of their “Bake the World a Better Place” sugar cookie.

“When you bundle it all up together, to think we’ve given $26,000 back into our community, it makes our hearts happy,” said Robertson at the shop at 669 Stafford St.

Rosin and Robertson opened Sweet Impressions, a nut-free bakery specializing in custom hand-decorated confections, in 2008 and for the past two years, the bakery has been selling $2 sugar cookies with 100 per cent of proceeds destined for a local charity.

“We’ve always done some element of charitable donations right from the beginning,” Rosin explained. “We would have requests come in and we’d support whoever asked first in that particular month, and we felt we were doing a little bit in a lot of places, but not really making any kind of impact.”

The pair sat down and came up with a deliberate strategy to support local. Through the sale of the cookies — decorated with an image of the globe and a heart where Winnipeg might be found — the bakery raises funds for a small grassroots charity over a three-month period. The bakery’s 25-person staff vote for the charity from a pool of external nominations and are treated to a presentation from a charity representative. The bakery covers the costs of the cookie, labour, and packaging and highlights the charity on their social media platforms.

On average, the program has raised between $2,500 and $3,500 for 10 charities since its inception.

“When we sell the cookies not only do we hand out the brochures, we can give them a little snippet of who they are as well,” Robertson said. “It makes our heart so happy knowing that we try to do something small, and there’s so many volunteers out there putting their heads down and their hearts forward, and it’s exciting to be a part of something that maybe you weren’t familiar with before.”

In the past, charities benefiting from the cookies have included Main Street Project, Epilepsy & Seizure Association of Manitoba, Inclusion Winnipeg, and the Never Alone Foundation. Until September, the bakery is selling cookies in support of SCE LifeWorks.

“I can’t even say enough about what this means to us,” said Michelle Bailey, manager of employment development and public relations at SCE LifeWorks. “We are one of the smaller grassroots organizations in the city of Winnipeg.

“Anything that we can get in addition to what we currently receive from the government and our current donor base is so appreciated,” she said.

SCE LifeWorks supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in securing meaningful employment in the community by providing training and assistance in the workplace. Annually, about 280 people access SCE LifeWorks’ services, Bailey said, and funds raised during the cookie campaign will buttress the organization as it provides employment consultants and plans its annual Snowflake Soiree, a highlight of the year for SCE’s participants.

For smaller organizations like SCE, a ready-made fundraising program that requires minimal investment on their end is a gift, Bailey said.

“They have made it resource-friendly for us because there is no work on our end,” Bailey said. “When you have local businesses, like Sweet Impressions, recognizing how to give back, it’s just heartwarming.”