Drop In & Decorate, Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Rhode Island and founded by food blogger Lydia Walshin, hosts Drop In & Decorate® cookies-for-donation events and provides financial and technical support to events hosted by individuals and organizations around the world. We are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Our mission is to build bridges of caring and respect between groups within their own communities, and to offer a more personal way for people to make a difference. We do that with cookies -- because cookies are universal, and because cookies make people happy.
Drop In & Decorate is a simple concept: bake some cookies, invite friends or family (or neighbors, or co-workers) to stop in and help decorate, then donate your cookies to a local food pantry, emergency shelter, senior center, lunch program, or other community agency meeting the needs of food or shelter.
Drop In & Decorate® parties have become a wonderful tradition for many friends and families — a way to "give back" and have fun, too. If you would like to host an event and need advice or financial support, or need help connecting with a recipient agency in your community, please let us know.
*What is (and is not) a Drop In & Decorate® event?
In order to use the name Drop In & Decorate for your event, your event must decorate cookies. Not cupcakes, not cakes, not trees, not T-shirts.
Your event must donate cookies to agencies serving basic human needs (food or shelter) in your community, without discrimination. (See this list of organizations that have received cookies, and you'll see a whole range of possibilities.) If you cannot find an agency to accept your cookies, you may host a bake sale and donate the proceeds of that sale to the agency. Some agencies, like food banks, cannot take gifts of homemade food. However, smaller agencies in the community usually will be delighted to accept your cookies.
Wherever you are located, we can help you find a recipient agency. And wherever possible, we hope you will donate the cookies. Money is great, but cookies are something really special.
You may not use the Drop In & Decorate name or logo if the purpose of your event is to thank police, fire or rescue workers, or hospital staff, or to send cookies to military personnel or military families. All of those are wonderful things to do -- it is just not what we do. There are many agencies you can work with, including Fisher House Foundation and the USO, who look after the needs of military personnel, and we urge you to work with them if donating your cookies to soldiers is what you'd like to do.
You may not use the Drop In & Decorate name or logo if the purpose of your event is to promote political or for-profit organizations, or to support an individual (i.e., raising money to pay someone's medical bills). We will allow our name to be used in connection with religious organizations having community-wide goals, for example, a church-run public soup kitchen, food pantry, homeless shelter or other initiative where the mission is clearly to help the general community by providing for basic human needs.
Drop In & Decorate® cookies for donation events are protected by trademark. If you are not sure whether the event you're planning can be called a Drop In & Decorate® event, please email to lydia AT dropinanddecorate DOT org or call 401-567-4460 for information.
