New bakery continues hosting ‘Have a Heart Campaign’ in Medina

$1 cookies are fundraiser for Arc GLOW

Provided photo: Nicole Tuohey holds a heart cutout cookie as she stands in front of the former Case-Nic Cookies to promote her annual Have a Heart Campaign in honor of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month in March. New owner Hans Rosentrater is allowing use of his windows to promote charitable events and will sell the cookies in his bakery for $1.

MEDINA – For most of the years Mary Lou Tuohey ran Case-Nic Cookies, she baked heart cutout cookies which she and daughter Nicole sold in March to support Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month.

Now that Tuohey has sold the building to Hans Rosentrater, he is willing to continue the tradition. He is following Tuohey’s example of allowing non-profits to use the store windows for basket raffles. Currently baskets are on display to benefit Arc GLOW, which assists individuals with disabilities in the four counties of Genesee, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming.

The frosted heart cookies are $1 and can be purchased at the store or ordered by calling (585) 798-1676.

The Tuoheys have been avid supporters of people with disabilities since Nicole was born with Triple X Syndrome and doctors told them she may never walk, talk, read, write or do math.

“As of that moment, we were determined, and she has been determined not to be ‘labeled,’” Mary Lou said. “Nicole is 33 years old and has done all of what the doctors said she wouldn’t do, and more. She has danced with Miss Stephanie for 28 years. She plays basketball, bowls, rides a horse, swims and rides a bike. She volunteers for different events at the Arc. She, too, is a person, not just a label, who has feelings, potential and determination. She may not do things the way other people do, but that doesn’t mean it is wrong. It means there are other ways to accomplish the same goal.”

Nicole attended Rainbow Preschool from 3 months of age to 5 years old and currently is part of Day Hab through Arc GLOW.

Each year in March, Mary Lou has included Nicole in fundraising to support the organization during Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month. This is the seventh year they have sold heart cutout cookies, using a red frosted cookie and a red and white frosted one to demonstrate how things, especially people, can be different, but the same.

Their annual campaign always included the words, “One is red, one is pink. The pink one has a bite out of. Other than that they are the same – made of the same ingredients, rolled out the same, cut the same and taste the same.”

That is the same with people, Tuohey explained.

“We are made of the same thing,” she wrote. “We might look different. We might not think the same, learn the same and socialize the same. But we all have feelings, all have potential and all have determination.”

Nicole and Mary Lou urge people to continue to support the charitable causes as they have in the past.

Hans’s Bakery is located at 439 Main St.