GeoEngineers’ Spokane, Washington office hosts an annual holiday cookie exchange. It’s a tradition that raises money for a good cause while helping the local A/E/C community connect over shared treats and recipes. Thanks to public health concerns this year, it looked like the usual lunch-hour gathering of 75-plus women and hundreds of little bags of homemade cookies wouldn’t be possible.
The event has become such a hit that people regularly reach out to organizer April Smith several months in advance for details. During the summer, April started getting calls from friends and colleagues who were already thinking about the holiday cookie exchange and hoping it could still go forward somehow.
“People really look forward to exchanging cookies and networking with owners and teaming partners at this annual event and were worried it would be canceled,” said Smith. “We knew we needed to find a creative solution rather than skip this year.”
They were up to the task. A team of creative women in the Spokane office (Monica Evans, Teresa Hughbanks, Nancy Musgrove, Teresa Dugger and April Smith) devised a safe and socially-distanced cookie event. April reached out to a woman- and veteran-owned bakery to purchase 50 cookie kits with the ingredients for their famous sugar cookies, supporting a local business during a challenging time. GeoEngineers’ designer created an attractive box and recipe card to go with the cookie kit, and an oven mitt completed the package.
Clients and industry friends stopped by the office for a curbside pickup of their cookie kits (and to drop off donations for this year’s charity), then baked and decorated their cookies at home and shared photos of their work. A virtual event the following weekend supported local charity Salem Arms Community Housing, and organizers raffled off prizes for the best decorated cookies.
We can all use some cheer at the end of 2020, and GeoEngineers is proud to have creative and driven employees who have gone the extra mile to serve clients, colleagues and friends over the past months.
