Whether due to being furloughed or having work conditions changed to remote, so many have found themselves spending more time than usual at home over this past year.

A lot of these individuals have taken this extended time at home to experience new things and develop skills they had never attempted before, and that’s exactly what Scott McKenzie of Huntington, PA did when he was furloughed at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Scott (58) decided he would take this time to learn something new each week he was home, and he started in April with tackling how to bake chocolate chip cookies from scratch. Proud of his finished product, he posted about it on Facebook and received a comment from friend of 15 years Jeremy Uhrich (42) who was also in the middle of baking cookies with his sons.

Jeremy bet that his cookies were better than Scott’s and challenged him to a bake off, a challenge Scott quickly accepted.  The date was set and it was determined that the town’s mayor would play the role as judge.

After the competition, the dads delivered the rest of their cookies to local medical staff and first responders as a way to encourage these workers and say “thank you” for their service. They received such a great response from these workers and had such a fun time baking a sharing their cookies, they decided to create a Facebook group called ‘Cookies for Caregivers‘ so others could join in on sharing some cheer with their community’s essential workers.

CBS reported that within days of it’s creation, the group already had a few hundred members, with 40 volunteers offering to start baking right away. Each week the men would make a list of volunteers to bake for that week, as well as a list of who would receive the baked goods, and then Scott and Jeremy would deliver the treats. To date, over 15,000 cookies have been delivered to frontline workers.

Recipients included fire and police departments, local business, grocery store workers, and of course the hospital. For 40 straight weeks since beginning ‘Cookies for Caregivers,’ the group has consistently delivered treats to Penn Highlands Huntington Hospital.

But ‘Cookies for Caregivers’ hasn’t stayed confined to Huntington. Satellite groups have started all over the country, which is exactly what the two men had hoped would happen.

“Jeremy and I from the very beginning hoped that this would grow from something that we do here in Huntington, Pennsylvania, to what could happen across the country,” Scott told CBS. They like to say that ‘Cookies for Caregivers’ is “expanding their hug radius.”

“Right about now, who doesn’t need a hug? When things get tough, expand your hug, make it bigger,” Scott continued. “And then, collectively, you’ll get through it, I think in a better way.”