To the editor: Thank you for a great Cookie Tour

The 3rd Annual Chester Holiday Cookie Tour, held Sunday, Dec. 8 in the Stone Village, was a resounding success as more than 100 people toured historic homes, chatted with the hosts and other visitors and tasted homemade cookies.

Visitors came from as far away as Texas and Connecticut although most were Springfield and Chester residents interested in visiting these historic places for the first time or curious to see the changes in homes they knew as children.

The cookie tour organizers Cynthia Prairie and Shawn Cunningham would like to thank the hosts, without whose kindness, generosity and hospitality this event could never be successful:

• David and Sindy Pisha
• Michaeline and Douglas Curtis
• Mark Ouellette and Carol Ann Leofanti
• The Stone Church and Melody Reed
• Ed and Joan Grossman
• Lew and Bonnie Watters
• Chuck and Kathy Giurtino
• Lynn and Frederick Way
• The Chester-Andover Family Center
• The Stone Village Art Guild

Also deserving of much thanks are the Town of Chester and its super road crew, who plowed the walkways and the parking area at Flamstead Road and Route 103 and the Chester Fire Department for loaning lots of orange road cones that slowed traffic and kept pedestrians safe.

A big thank you also to Scott and Leslie Blair and staff of the Southern Pie Cafe for selling passports as well as Nena Nanfeldt who took it upon herself to sell the passports at the Family Center.

Special thanks to NewsBank for donating the work of the talented Print Shop crew and cost of printing for this year’s passport, as they have done for the past two years.

Also thanks to the advertisers in this year’s passport: The Southern Pie Cafe, Erskine’s Grain and Feed, Chester Hardware and Flower Shop, the Gift Shop at Motel in the Meadow and Betty McEnaney of TPW Real Estate.

And many thanks to all the visitors who brought their holiday cheer to every place they stopped on the tour.

Planning for the 4th Annual Chester Holiday Cookie Tour will begin in January 2020.

All proceeds from the Cookie Tour will be donated to the Chester-Andover Family Center and the Overture to Christmas.

Cynthia Prairie
Holiday Cookie Tour organizer
Overture to Christmas