Northern Westchester Hospital Recieves Gifts from Local Brownie Troop

Northern Westchester Hospital Center in Mount Kisco, NY, certainly has a lot of help from the local community. In 2006, Connie Milstein partnered with the hospital to open a second Connie’s Bakery & General Store in the hospital’s main lobby. Earlier this month, ten 8-year-old girls from a Briarcliff Brownie troop visited the emergency room at Northern Westchester Hospital Center. But on that Friday night, there were no injured Brownies. The young girls came bearing gifts – activity bags they had made using troop earnings from cookie sales to keep children who come to the hospital for emergency treatment entertained. Each bag contained crayons, yo-yo’s and activity books and the scouts had decorated the bags inside and out with colorful, cheerful drawings.

The idea for the activity bags came from one of the Briarcliff Brownies herself, a second-grader at St. Theresa’s School in Briarcliff. Madison Mezzatesta’s brother had been taken to the emergency room last summer while on a trip to Maryland. There, he was given an activity bag, which helped distract him while the family waited in the ER.

Emergency Room Director Sharon Marino said that annually, about one-third of patients who come into the emergency room are children. And though the 100 bags would quickly disappear into the arms of waiting children, the troop leaders were already thinking about making more.

Charitable Support from Connie’s Bakery & General Store

Certainly, if you’ve ever been to Connie’s Bakery & General Store, owned by Connie Milstein, then you know that you can find delicious food and baked goods. What you might not know is that 100% of the after-tax profits go to 6 charitable organizations that Connie selects each year. These organizations receive Connie Milstein’s financial support, and are also promoted at the store and on the website. Three of the organizations to receive Connie’s Bakery & General Store support at the moment include:

The Food Bank of the Hudson Valley – This non-for-profit organization collects large donations of unmarketable but still edible food and distributes it to nearly 370 member agencies in six counties in the Hudson Valley.

Visiting Nurse Association of Hudson Valley – This not-for-profit organization provides home health care in the Westchester Community to those who need services, regardless of their ability to pay.

Veteran’s Hospital of Castle Point – This hospital in New York offers a large array of services to veterans who have served their country.

Connie Milstein Shows Support with Gift of Delicious Brownies

Assistant pastry chef Jamie Jeffrey, along with Liane Paap of Connie’s Bakery, delivered 20,000 brownies to the inaugural celebration in Washington D.C. last January. According to Deena Plotka, who works at Connie’s too,

“Connie Milstein wanted to support the efforts of our president-elect, of all the people in Washington, D.C., our nation and all the volunteers.”

Connie’s is an amazing enterprise which is well-known for its one year apprenticeship program, which hires people having difficulties finding work and trains them to be employable in the food service industry. Jamie Jeffrey, the employee that delivered the brownies to Washington, was living in a shelter with no prospects for gainful employment when she became an apprentice at Connie’s Bakery, in 2006. After finishing her apprenticeship she was hired at a full-time assistant pastry chef at the Bakery, and got to deliver the brownie’s to the inauguration.

Team Effort at Connie’s Bakery Get Brownie’s to the Inauguration on Time

Connie’s Bakery, located in Mt. Kisco, New York, closed down from January 5th until January 17th so that the staff would be available to bake, wrap and store 20,0000 brownies to be distributed at various events and venues of the presidential inauguration of Barak Obama. Working 20 hour days, the staff at Connie Milstein’s bakery worried if they would be able to complete the task at hand by the deadline, when they only managed to pack 810 brownies by the end of the first day.

Enlisting the help of the community by placing a sign on the door of Connie’s asking for help from the public, volunteers came to the rescue and brought the 20,000 brownies goal to fruition.
Expressing a theme of Connie’s Bakery in general, Deena Plotka, one of the employees at Connie’s, said,

“That’s the only way for us to be successful, is through the support of the community.”

Plotka continued:

“This goes to show us how many people are becoming aware of who we are, what we do and our mission, and they support our efforts.”

Twenty Thousand Brownies for Inauguration of Barak Obama from Connie’s Bakery

Connie’s Bakery, one of Connie Milstein’s philanthropic projects, donated 20,000 brownies to the historic inaugural celebration of President Barak Obama in January, 2009. In order to facilitate this mighty undertaking, Connie’s was closed from January 5th until January 17th, although the facility was itself was hard at work producing the scrumptious brownies by the thousands.

The yummy treats were distributed to the large cadre of volunteers working hard to make the inauguration an outstanding success, and were Connie’s way of saying thank you and giving back to the community. The largest number of brownies, 10,000, was distributed at the “Day of Service” even which took place at RFK Stadium. The rest of the brownies were made available at seven other events in honor of and in celebration of the inauguration.