Thanks to cookie bakers from the Minot community and Minot Air Force Base, first-term airmen who live in the dorms on base are getting sweet treats delivered to them for the holidays.

The airmen are between the ages of 18-20 years and it is the first time for many of them to be away from their families for the holidays.

Cookies are also going to airmen who work during the holidays.

The Minot Spouses’ Club at Minot AFB, sponsors of the annual Airmen Cookie Drive, gathers a total of around 1,200 dozen cookies to go to the airmen. This comes to one dozen homemade cookies per person for the first-term airmen.

The Minot Area Chamber of Commerce helps each year with the cookie drive as the drop-off donation station for cookies donated by community people. This year’s deadline for donations was Dec. 13. The cookies then were delivered to the base where volunteers box the cookies and the cookies are distributed to airmen.

“Baking cookies is just one small way the Minot community can show its appreciation to the men and women serving in the military,” said Randy Hauck, chair of the Minot Area Chamber of Commerce’s Military Affairs Committee.