How a small Texas bakery’s Pride cookie went viral, sold out and helped animal rescues
What’s the opposite of cancel culture? Enact culture?
Whatever you call it, it happened over the weekend in East Texas.
Confections, a small bakery in Lufkin, has been overwhelmed by an outpouring of customer support — from the town of 35,000 and from all over the country.
After the bakery promoted a Pride month inspired rainbow-colored, heart-shaped cookie on social media, it received some negative reaction and canceled orders, according to the Confections’ social media pages on Facebook and Instagram.
The post, which is pinned atop its Facebook page, was posted Wednesday afternoon.
“More LOVE. Less hate,” read the post, along with an image of the Pride-inspired cookies. “Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ friends! All lovers of cookies and happiness are welcome here.”
By Thursday evening, however, Confections posted details of lost business and “hateful” messages because of its LGBTQ support.
“Today has been hard. Really hard,” Confections co-owner Dawn Cooley posted on Facebook. “We lost a significant amount of followers because of a rainbow heart cookie we posted. We received a very hateful message on our business page canceling a large order (5 dozen) of summer themed cookies for tomorrow morning (that we just finished decorating) because of a rainbow heart cookie we posted.”
“My heart is heavy. Honestly I never thought a post that literally said more love less hate would result in this kind of backlash to a very small business that is struggling to stay afloat and spread a little cheer through baked goods,” Cooley continued in her post.
The post went viral and cookie fans from all over inundated the tiny store with orders. Confections posted an image of a line of customers winding out its doors on Friday. They were forced to close an hour early because they were completely sold out. Orders poured in from all over the country, but the company doesn’t ship.
Out of a desire to support the bakery or support LGBTQ acceptance, or both, many have sent in donations.
Confections has directed those interested in donating to three animal rescues, including Wendy’s Misfits Animal Rescue, Blue Collar Mutts Rescue, and Saint Francis Animal Rescue. Several thousands of dollars had been donated to the rescue shelters by Saturday evening.
“Thanks so much for all the kind words and outpouring of support,” Confections posted on Saturday. “So many of you want to buy cookies and donate to our local nursing homes and charities and we are working out how to accomplish that! We are hoping to start a schedule after Father’s Day.”
This story was originally published June 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
