STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
The bad news first: The Papoose Club has cancelled its annual Holiday Bazaar due to the COVID pandemic.
But—sweet news!—the organization is still holding its famous one-of-a-kind homemade holiday cookies by the dozen. And it will hold a raffle for a Sun Valley season ski pass.
“We have 30 to 40 elves making different kinds of cookies. We decided we could do that safely during the pandemic,” said Lee Dabney, president of the Papoose Club. “And, Sun Valley Company has always been so generous with giving us a season pass.”
The cookie sale will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5, in front of Windermere Real Estate on Main Street in Hailey. Those with a sweet tooth may avail themselves of touch-free sales on the sidewalk or order online for both cookies and the raffle at https://www.papooseclub.org/holiday.
Pre-boxed assorted cookies will be available for $10 a dozen. And these aren’t your typical chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies.
They include Italian ricotta Christmas cookies, frosted cranberry cookies, chocolate macadamia nut cookies, chocolate peppermint meringue cookies, snickerdoodle pinwheels, triple chocolate cake cookies, chocolate covered pretzel reindeer cookies, Nutter Butter reindeer cookies, elaborately decorated sugar cookies and decorated gingerbread cookies.
There will also be gluten-free and nut-free cookies.
“We try to encourage unique holiday recipes that people would not normally bake themselves,” said Dabney. “We are trying to keep it simple and hoping to raise some funds at the same time.”
The pandemic has taken its toll on the Papoose Club’s efforts to raise money to fund youth projects in the Wood River Valley.
The club gave out more than $28,000 in 2019, purchasing baby formula for The Hunger Coalition, providing summer camp scholarships for the Blaine County Recreation District, augmenting The Community Library’s summer reading program and more.
Its plant sale held in conjunction with Webb Nursery was cancelled in May. So was the Wagon Days pancake breakfast.
With the cupboards bare, the club sold some coronavirus pinatas with spikes, but that was a low-key sale to members.
“We’re hoping we can raise enough to continue to be able to donate where needed and make sure kids have the things they need to for school,” said Dabney. “The Papoose Club has been dedicated to the youth of the Wood River Valley for more than 50 years and we won’t let COVID get us down! Especially now, when our youth are in need of our help more than ever.”
When the cookie sale and raffle are over, The Papoose Club will take a look at rebranding itself , taking on a new name and recasting itself as an organization that’s open to more than Moms.
The talk of a name change follows a summer in which college and high schools dropped mascot names deemed offensive to Native Americans. Expanding membership comes in light of the fact that the organization has grown far beyond its original goal in 1954 of providing a network for Moms to share in child care so other Moms could go skiing.
“A lot of people have told us that they’ve never joined because they thought it was open only to Moms. We have members who are not mothers—we even recently recruited a few men,” said Dabney. “We’d like to have families join us. We would love to have kids involved. We could really benefit from how digital savvy and creative the youth of our valley are.
“In this day, it takes a village. Really,” she added.