Nuns’ cookies for favorite team help out charity

Profits go to a retirement community for poor people.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Sister Mary Assumpta for decades has made sure the Cleveland Indians had cookies before a big game, and any game in the American League Championship Series versus the Boston Red Sox qualifies.

Now the cookies made by the Sisters of the Holy Spirit — trademarked as Nun Better — are being sold to the public to raise funds for the Jennings Center for Older Adults, a retirement community for people with limited financial resources.

“Our dream is to build the business to where we can build the endowment fund so we can take care of the poor,” said Sister Mary, a devoted Indians fan and director of mission development at the center.

She made sure cookies accompanied the Indians to Boston for the first games of the American League Championship Series and were delivered to Jacobs Field for the home stand this week.

Sister Mary says she is thrilled the cookie business evolved from supporting the Tribe.

The nun-team relationship started in 1985, when outfielder Mel Hall invited Sister Mary and other nuns — who were regularly in the stands cheering — into the clubhouse to meet their favorite players.

The following spring they wanted to deliver a gift for the home opener.

“So I suggested chocolate chip cookies,” Sister Mary said.

A tradition was born.

Sister Mary had a cameo in the 1989 movie “Major League,” about a fantasy Cleveland Indians team.

Even during the 1991 season, which ended with 105 losses, cookies arrived at the beginning of each home stand, Sister Mary said.

In 2002, after numerous requests, the sisters decided to use family recipes and bake and sell a variety of cookies at Jennings. Sales boomed last winter, when the cookies were featured in a catalog and online at monasterygreetings.com, a Cleveland company that sells merchandise and food made at religious communities.

“Shipping had always been a problem and we were ready to expand,” Sister Mary said.

The sisters and Jennings Home residents bake several days a week. Cookies are packed and stored in a walk-in freezer. Chocolate chip remains the top seller by far, Sister Mary said.

The cookies are shipped all over, even to soldiers in Iraq. Nun Better aprons, mugs and cookie jars are also available.

The Nun Better trademark was a gift from a patent attorney who is the son-in-law of a resident at Jennings, Sister Mary said.

The cookies made profit of $11,000 last year. There has been talk of turning Nun Better into a full-fledged company that would pay the sisters a licensing fee.

“It’s been a long time coming, but these things don’t happen without something bigger than us,” Sister Mary said.