Honoring a friend with cookies and cocoa

A neighborhood holiday tradition has helped Tara Murphy raise over $4,000 for a cancer charity.

Murphy’s family is one of the families who participates every year in Candy Cane Court or Candy Cane Lane, a group of neighborhoods in Poway off Carriage Road that elaborately decorate their houses for Christmas. Walking or driving through the streets viewing the lights has become a Poway tradition over the past two decades.

For Murphy, it’s also an opportunity to use the spirit of Christmas to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of a friend that beat cancer.

Murphy, who grew up in Poway and now lives in Ramona, hands out cookies and cocoa at the corner of Hickory Street and Hickory Court starting at 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights in December and doesn’t ask for donations. Instead, she said, people generally are generous enough to give on their own. She also never refuses anyone because they don’t have any money to donate. “Someone behind them usually will donate enough to make up the difference,” Murphy said. “We always make enough to cover costs, and then more to donate.”

She began about six years ago by baking her own cookies, which soon proved to be too big a task. Now, she purchases the cookies from bakeries and grocery stores. Murphy said she hands out thousands of cookies and cups of cocoa each December. “The last couple of years, it’s gotten bigger and bigger. You can’t even imagine how many people we serve.”

Murphy said she estimates that she’s been able to donate between $4,000 and $4,500 to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society thanks to Cookies and Cocoa for a Cure, as she calls her yearly fundraiser. Last year, she raised $2,500. Murphy has already raised over $1,000 this year, and said she anticipates being able to exceed last year’s donation.

The donations are in honor of her friend Brooke Dunn, a fellow Powegian who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma when she was 15. After traditional chemotherapy and radiation failed, Dunn underwent a stem cell transplant. She has been cancer free for ten years. “It’s a pretty cool success story,” said Murphy. “She was diagnosed very late at stage 4, which was not a good thing.” Murphy and Dunn attended Poway High School together and graduated in 2005.

Murphy said Dunn loves the Cookies and Cocoa for a Cure fundraiser. “Brooke loves coming out and helping,” said Murphy.

This year will be special for Murphy and Dunn, as a representative from the Leukemia and Lymphona Society will be visiting the cookie and cocoa table on Dec. 20. “They reached out to me recently,” said Murphy, who always includes a note about Cookies and Cocoa for a Cure when she makes her donations. “It will be their first time actually participating, I think it will be cool for them to see.”