Beth Gendler began the Cookies for COVID fund at the end of March 2020. She says,  “Everybody was helping in different ways, the only thing I knew I could do is to bake for people.”

The Cookies for COVID fund focuses on helping local families and “to raise funds for people who have been affected by COVID.” Gendler has raised over $2,200 so far. She has given gift cards to people who can’t afford food, helped one woman pay bills, and provided water for some of the first responders in town.

Gendler says it began “by me offering to make birthday cakes for people that didn’t have money so that every kid would end up with a birthday cake.” Her neighbor asked for cookies and that’s how the ‘Cookies for COVID’ fund got its name.

She had opened her new bakery here in Myersville called Miss Bethany’s Bakery after she closed her bakery in Pennsylvania called Secret Bakery. Baked goods for sale include cookies, pies, scones, banana bread, pumpkin bread, cupcakes, birthday cakes and wedding cakes. She sells right at the bakery and can be reached on Facebook as Miss Bethany’s Bakery.