LAKE ANN — Lake Ann Mayor Dan Hawkins shared an article during an informal Community Coffee that gives people from the village regular opportunities to communicate with local officials. The theme was apathy, and how it can be a barrier to small towns’ survival.
Al Uryga took that to heart.
“Al said, ‘That really resonated with me when you said that small towns die because of apathy,’” Hawkins says. “There are examples of that everywhere. Al said he didn’t want that to happen.”
Uryga and his wife, Debra Lanning, moved to Lake Ann in 2022 and immediately got involved in the community. Spurred by Hawkins’ message, and noticing that the village’s holiday decorations were, well, sad, an idea for an annual event they call the Lake Ann Great Holiday Cookie Challenge bubbled up.
The inaugural event was last year, featuring 10 bakers who live in the village and brought 300 home-baked cookies each that were sold for $10 per 10.
Until then, Toni Richter, who works at Lake Ann Grocery, had assumed the role of holiday coordinator, but it wasn’t easy to make much happen with limited funds. The village’s entire budget is just under $152,000, supported by about 273 residents — a number that varies with the season, Hawkins explains. Local businesses would provide support as they could, with the village contributing about $200 each toward three village celebrations: Halloween, Christmas and Easter.
“We had barely anything to start with at all,” she says. “I used a lot of my money and a couple ladies kind of pitched in. We decided we were going to make it a Lake Ann thing and started a Christmas committee and started getting allowances from the village.”
Even though that first challenge was held on a snowy Thursday night, about 100 people turned out. Including about 13 sponsorships, $3,600 was raised — enough to provide $500 for each occasion for two years. For Christmas, the village park is transformed with holiday lights.
The second annual cookie challenge is set for Sunday, Dec. 7, from 1-3 p.m. at the Almira Township Hall in the village. With 24 sponsors this year and building on the success of 2024, organizers hope to earn even more and plans are for proceeds to fund additional community projects.
“Each baker is stationed at their own table,” Uryga says. “People can talk to the bakers — a lot use old family recipes — and after they collect their cookies they can go down to the basement of the township hall and vote for their favorite.”
Sarah Spaulding won last year’s challenge by making a soft chewy gingersnap that happens to be her children’s favorite. “I love baking,” she says. “I bake my kids all of their birthday cakes and we make cookies quite often.
“Every year I usually make homemade sugar cookies with my kids, with homemade frosting, and decorate them. It’s kind of a tradition I started with my grandma when I was little.”
For the challenge, though, she opted for the gingersnaps because they’re a family favorite. No one can eat just one, she says. She’s planning on competing again this year.
“It was really fun,” she says. “They had it decorated really cute. Everyone joked it was kind of like a Christmas movie.”
Vickey Supina also participated last year and is returning hoping to win this time. She made a family sugar cookie recipe that came from her mother-in-law. “I had fun decorating them,” she says. “I’m an artist — I used to work as a pastry chef when I lived in Detroit and I just put a lot of that into it.”
This year, she’s changing her recipe up with chocolate. “I enjoy pure ingredients,” she says. “I enjoy pure flavors in everything.”
New to the competition this year is Jessica Bocian. She and her two daughters — 11-year-old Brynn and 9-year-old Kaelin — are doing the baking together.
“They said, ‘We really want to be in this baking challenge,’” Bocian explains. “My daughter and husband went down last year and said it was magical. They set up the town hall space with live Christmas trees. It’s like from a Hallmark movie.”
The Bocians will be making a traditional Dutch cookie that Jessica’s grandma used to make. “We were from the U.P. and I used to drive to Grand Rapids to buy almond paste for my grandma,” Bocian says. “She would make it every year.”
In fact, for many years, her grandma just made it for her own kids; the grandkids never knew about it. When her grandmother found out her grown children had been hoarding them for themselves, she began giving them to the next generation.
For their part, Uryga and Lanning couldn’t be more pleased with the response to the event. Christmas already keeps them busy with Uryga also having the role of the village Santa. Known as The Dashing Santa, he as Kris Kringle and Lanning as an elf began doing social-distanced home visits in 2020 when kids couldn’t go out.
“It’s a family thing,” Uryga says. “Every year Santa would come to our family Christmas party and my uncle was always Santa.”
When his uncle moved out of state, Uryga inherited the Santa suit. “When my nephew was born, I got a brand-new professional Santa suit and would ring bells outside of his window at night. He would look out and see Santa putting lights on the tree. He’s 17 now.”
So seeing the cookie challenge that supports Lake Ann’s Christmas observance turn out to be a success was all the more special.
“It was very Christmasy, with a lot of people enjoying tasting the different cookies,” Uryga says. “It was just very good community spirit.”
For Richter, it’s been great to have more resources. “We replaced the lights that were burned out and added more lights to it,” she says. “We just got things like canisters that have the hot chocolate in them, the cups and all that kind of stuff. Everything’s covered and we don’t have to come up with anything.”