Dad’s Cookies Owner Lance Sanchez (center) poses for a photo with members of CalFire during a recent trip to Southern California to aid in wildfire relief. Photo contributed by Dad's Cookies

A Fresno business that formed in the grips of the pandemic recently returned the favor of giving in a time of need, providing much-needed emotional assistance to firefighters fighting the rash of wildfires in Southern California earlier this month.

Dad’s Cookies, founded in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, traveled to a Malibu-based relief center for emergency responders fighting the Palisades Fire last week, handing out cookies and sharing inspiration.

Dad’s Cookies Owner Lance Sanchez’s daughter, Haivyn, lives in the Los Angeles Arts District. While not too close to the fires, it was close enough to require wearing N95 masks when traveling outdoors.

“To see a disaster like that happening almost right in front of our eyes…I talked to Haivyn to make sure that she was OK, and then we started thinking about what we could do,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez also has connections in the Los Angeles area, having done business there in the past.

Sanchez said the goal was to bring the feeling of a warm cookie and good conversation for firefighters and volunteers, many of whom worked shifts pushing 24 hours or more.

 

“A lot of them [were] staying in tents down there; some of them I heard had been working 24 hours on, 24 hours off,” he said. “We had firefighters who had just pulled in. They came up to us to get a cookie and still had ashes on their faces.”

Sanchez added that Dad’s Cookies was born during the grips of a different disaster, and felt that the connection of disasters coinciding with positivity was symbolic.

“To see [Haivyn], her boyfriend and my nephew, they’re youngsters, and to see them standing there and conversating with [the firefighters], and trying to bring them a little bit of a light mood was a really neat thing to see,” he said. “To bring them a little bit of home — that’s really what our effort was.”

Sanchez said the environment at the relief center was  busy, with many food and sanitation trucks on site, including celebrity chef Guy Fieri’s food truck. Local chefs were on site providing full-course meals for the firefighters and volunteers.

 

Donation with a cause

There are two Dad’s Cookies locations — one in Fresno and Lemoore.

Prior to their departure, Sanchez met with his team and discussed ways they could help support the efforts financially.

Sanchez’s father, George, spent much of his young life incarcerated. Lance himself did not have a close connection with his father growing up, limited to visitation and short-term interaction between prison stints.

That all changed when George discovered employment through the prison system in the incarcerated firefighter programs offered by the Department of Corrections.

George, who was then in his 40s, signed on to become an incarcerated firefighter.

“All of a sudden, he completely changed,” Lance said. “Before he was talking about other things that would go on [in prison] and to me it felt like a negative thing…as soon as he became an incarcerated firefighter, that all changed.”

 

Sanchez said that his father, once released, felt more of a purpose and turned his life around.

“He basically became a dad,” Lance said. “He and I had a strong relationship from then on.”

That inspired Lance to donate 15% of Dad’s Cookies proceeds on a recent Friday to the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, a nonprofit that supports formerly incarcerated individuals and advocates in the reform of criminal justice.

The nonprofit also organizes incarcerated firefighting units, providing uniforms, equipment and coordinating correctional officers to chaperone the firefighters.

Sanchez hopes that through their donations and assistance, the firefighters who fought the devastating wildfires not only found hope and inspiration, but also that his business is able to spread positivity and provide assistance whenever possible in future disasters.