A passion for baking, a creative mind and a love for people were key ingredients for resident Hillary Manns to put together giving less fortunate families a Thanksgiving dinner, sparking her to feed many more than she initially thought.
Before her journey to helping those in need this past holiday season, her passion for baking started, which led her to begin a business that took off due to her love for people.
“I own The Cookie Jar, which is a small, cottage bakery out of my home,” Manns said. “I do gourmet-style cookies, like salted caramel, s’mores, hot chocolate and other fun flavors. I also do gluten-free, sugar-free and dairy-free cookies. I try to help those who have allergy aversions so people who can enjoy sweets can have something good to eat.”
Manns wears many hats, not only baking desserts and sweet treats but also being a wife and stepmom, all while working at Ellisville State School and managing The Coffeehouse of Ellisville.
She and her husband Logan have been married since 2019. Manns talked about how she enjoyed baking with her stepdaughters Noah and Dallas. That love for baking blended into a trip to the most magical place on earth in 2022.
“I’ve always loved to bake. I married Logan in 2019. He has two young girls, so whenever we have holidays with them, I enjoy baking cookies with them, their birthday cakes and other things like that. In 2022, we decided that we wanted to go to Disney World. My first thought was, ‘How in the world are we going to pay to go to Disney five months after Christmas?’” Manns said with a chuckle.
Manns began baking cookies and other desserts, selling them at various places and events and delivering them to those who placed orders.
“Everything is prepared by hand out of my kitchen at home, just me baking away,” she said.
Making various specialty items catapulted her business, Manns said.
“Once I started doing the gluten-free items, my business started skyrocketing,” she said. “Ever since then, I have stayed busy. June and July are slower, but overall, I stay pretty busy. This past Mardi Gras season, I did a gluten-free king cake and ended up baking 57 because they were so popular.”
She expects to be busy this month baking more for Mardi Gras lovers.
“Whenever I go to market days now, I take a mix of everything so everyone can enjoy something.”
During October 2024, she baked an estimated 2,000 cookies, both regular and allergy-aversion varieties, with the Loblolly Festival and other markets being places where she sells the most goods.
Another hat Manns wears is being a part of the Ellis Club, which was the beginning of her story of helping those in need.
“I’m in my provisional year of the Ellis Club, and the project we chose to help this year is the Unlimited Dreams Christian Learning Center in Laurel,” she said. “Amanda Cooley owns and funds the center on her own. They have 120 kids, and they fall below the poverty line and are left behind in public school. She takes them to her school, provides them with school uniforms, feeds them and gets them school supplies. That’s what our project involved was helping her.”
Helping the learning center gave Manns a peek into the lives of less fortunate families, and it just so happened that this past Thanksgiving, her home was unusually empty, leading her to take on another project.
“My stepdaughters were going to their mom’s home for the holidays and my husband was out of town working, so it was going to be just me for Thanksgiving,” she said. “I wanted to help families have Thanksgiving with their loved ones because everyone deserves the opportunity to celebrate with their families like everyone else gets to do.”
Manns reached out to Cooley at the learning center, who informed her of the families who might need a meal over the holidays.
When Manns said a full meal, she truly meant it. Manns prepared a ham or turkey, dressing, macaroni and cheese, corn casserole, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, rolls and pie.
“Amanda told me that she had four families that she knew of,” she said.
Manns posted what she was doing on social media, where she received a flurry of responses from people who wanted to help in any way they could.
“The response I had was so incredible. I ended up having a sign-up sheet, and due to all of the help, I was able to feed 15 families with an entire meal,” Manns stated.
She said friends and friends of friends donated items that she needed, with many adding items that they were already planning to prepare for their own Thanksgiving meal.
“I reached out to North Street Mission in Ellisville, and they knew of a couple of families that needed a meal, and we reached out to another organization to find more families we could feed,” she said. “As long as people were wanting to help, I wanted to open as many spots as possible.”
It dawned on Manns that while she was excited to help, loading and transporting the food was going to be a challenge.
“Once everything started rolling in, I messaged a friend of mine and asked ‘How am I going to load 15 turkeys and 100 casseroles in my Toyota Camry?’” Manns laughed.
She and her friends put on their thinking caps and made a way to have items delivered and dinners to be taken on allotted days throughout the Thanksgiving week.
“We worked it out where we (had) a day where people (carried) things to each location,” she said.
When asked if she thought helping feed families would take off as quickly as it would, Manns admitted it was unexpected.
“I did not expect this to get so big, so fast. I’m just a little ole me from back in the woods of Ellisville,” Manns said. “I kind of got worried. I thought, ‘This is a lot more than I thought it would be,’ but I’m excited. I’m so happy to be able to help these families because times are hard right now.”
Despite the increase of meals needed and the many activities Manns juggles, she knew everything would work out.
“It can get tough sometimes (balancing things). There were some late nights and early mornings, but I knew God was going to work it out because He always does. It was all going to work out like it was supposed to,” she said.
“We’re all struggling, but I can’t imagine the stress of possibly feeling like I can’t give my family a Thanksgiving meal on Thanksgiving. Sitting there, knowing that, that doesn’t sit right with me. People deserve things just like everybody else does, for sure. We’re just all trying to make it,” Manns added.
She also helped families during Christmas as well, continuing to be a light in the community and serving others.