The Lake Country Republican Women have a sweet idea for helping veterans.
The organization has been baking pies and other desserts for its annual auction for a decade, and there will be almost 30 items up for bids at this year’s event.
The pie auction, which will air on WTCH from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, will benefit the Fisher House program, which expects to break ground for its first Wisconsin location, in Milwaukee, on June 3.
The Fisher House project provide places for veterans’ families to stay while their loved ones are being treated at VA hospitals.
The Lake Country Republican Women focus most of their attention on making sure veterans are cared for after they return from war and leave the service, said Darlene Ross, a longtime LCRW member who has baked for all 10 years of the auction.
“It’s for the best cause I can find — veterans,” Ross said Wednesday as she frosted some raisin bread she had just baked at home. “I feel that veterans are being forgotten. They’re not put first, and yet they’re the ones who fought for our freedom.”
Besides the raisin bread, Ross baked cookies, cakes, breads and a number of pies. One of the pies, a sweetheart pie, is very popular.
“In a sweetheart pie, you will find cherries and raspberries mixed together,” Ross said. “That one usually goes to a guy in Pulaski. I have never met him, but he just says there’d better be a sweetheart pie. He buys it for his wife.”
Having a Fisher House closer to home will be a blessing, said Virginia Jesse, LCRW president, noting that the closest facilities are in Minnesota and Illinois.
The Milwaukee Fisher House will be located just northwest of Lake Wheeler and be within walking distance of the VA medical center. The 13,000-square-foot facility is expected to open in the summer of 2015 with 16 suites. Only families that live more than 50 miles from the VA hospital can use the Fisher Houses.
“In the beginning, we had split the money we raised between literacy and Fisher House, but for the last four years, all the money has gone to Fisher House,” Jesse said, adding that her group raised more than $1,500 at last year’s auction.
Jesse hopes to eclipse that amount this year, noting that she did a lot more outreach due to the planning for Wisconsin’s Fisher House. She said she asked previous buyers in the auction what kind of pies and desserts they would like to see.
“One contacted me for two cherry pies,” Jesse said. “She said she’d put in a $50 bid each for two cherry pies for (member) Marlys Tauchen to make.”
With Mother’s Day right around the corner, the Lake Country Republican Women expect to have a number of people bid for desserts for the holiday.
“Mother doesn’t have to bake,” Ross said.
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