PAX West 2024: Cookie Brigade

Everybody loves charity and seeing our hard-earned money go towards causes that we really care about and can get behind wholeheartedly. Everybody loves cookies, those little discs of confectionery happiness that fill us with glee and an overload of dopamine. What happens when you put those two things together? You get the legendary PAX staple – the Cookie Brigade. 

The Cookie Brigade has been a part of the PAX experience for 17 years and counting. This year saw PAX’s 20th anniversary, so the group has been around for most of the highs and lows throughout the convention’s lifespan. I sat down Hayden Kane, one of the group's organizers, to discuss where Cookie Brigade started, why it means so much to PAX, and how it became paramount to the world of the Penny Arcade Expo.

A little background first: Cookie Brigade is a grassroots organization that started from humble beginnings way back in 2007. Two gentlemen started handing out cookies to the people waiting in line for different things at PAX as a gesture of good faith and to help curb some of the tedium that comes with queuing up to try a game on the show floor. It caught on quickly and built up year after year to be the monumental help organization it is today. Throughout that journey, it was decided that the focus didn’t have to solely be on gamers and the PAX community, instead having the opportunity to help the greater world. Unfortunately, the two who started handing out the cookies are no longer a part of the movement, but that hasn’t stopped the Cookie Brigade from raising over $1 million USD for various charities all over the world. 

I thought this was a good jumping off point with Hayden, so I asked him to specify some of the charities that Cookie Brigade has worked with in the past. Their current and longest-standing partner is an organization known as Child’s Play, which also happens to be the official charity of PAX itself. When children must spend long stints in the hospital, charities tend to focus on the most obvious (and decidedly most important) aspect of their stay: the sickness itself. Countless charities focus on research for illness, cures in the form of medication and treatment, and distribution of that medication and care. There’s no denying the utter importance of these noble endeavors, but it seems that one thing that’s often lost in the translation is the extreme amount of time the child spends in the hospital itself.

Cookie Brigade is a grassroots organization that started from humble beginnings way back in 2007. Two gentlemen started handing out cookies to the people waiting in line for different things at PAX as a gesture of good faith and to help curb some of the tedium that comes with queuing up to try a game on the show floor.

This is where Child’s Play comes in, with their organization being responsible for delivering therapeutic games and technologies to pediatric hospitals to make the child’s stay more bearable. Something as devastating as a cancer treatment can last upwards of 8 hours per session under certain circumstances, and giving kids the ability to play their favorite games and have a semblance of normalcy while these sorts of treatments are happening can be huge in the aid of their success. Cookie Brigade has worked with World Central Kitchen, an organization centered around disaster relief, as well as currently working with Take This, a group that helps de-stigmatize mental health issues in the gaming community. 

Hayden seemed extremely excited as he explained all the charities Cookie Brigade has helped and is currently working with. It’s obvious from his reaction, as well as the passion and energy brought by those who were running the booth, that their people really care about what they’re doing. I asked Hayden about his favorite part of being with Cookie Brigade, and he explained that just being a part of PAX is something he finds incredible. The community knows who they are, and the daily interactions he has while working the booth are what he cherishes. The public outpouring of support has been fantastic, and it was obvious that everyone really appreciated what Cookie Brigade is trying to do. They even recently launched a cookie dough plushie (the group's first official product of that type) and it seems like everyone truly loved the idea.

When asked how the charity structure itself worked, Hayden informed me that no one who works for Cookie Brigade is paid for their time; the organization relies entirely on volunteers to work the front lines. He told me that every volunteer is responsible for keeping the organization up and running. For some volunteers, such as organizers like himself, this may include planning the logistics, working PAXes as well as Magfest, working the booth, and just getting the word out. A lot of volunteers are charged with just helping out with the booth itself and being front-facing with events, as it takes a lot of people to make sure that those delectable little cookies actually get into the hands of eventgoers. Everyone is there purely out of the goodness of their heart, wanting nothing more than to forward the positivity and mission statement of Cookie Brigade through their cookies. 

This brings me to the quality of the product in question. After all the charity work, all the bettering of society as we know it, how are the cookies themselves? I’m happy to report that they’re absolutely delicious. After our interview, Hayden was kind enough to give me a free sample of their Nutty by Nature Peanut Butter (at his own recommendation) and it was fantastic. The peanut butter taste was sweet and pleasant without being overly powerful, the cookie itself was soft and delicate, and it was a really good portion size for a sweet treat like this. It was so good, in fact, I went the next day as well and had their thin mint variety (this time donating to the cause,) and it was just as tasty.

As the years progressed, the demand became far too much for Cookie Brigade to supply, so they started outsourcing their baking needs to a few different locations, like New Jersey bakery Feed your Soul, as well as Cookie Mom’s – a small bakery started by one of their own organizers and board members. Their cookie variety is expansive, including gluten free options, that have some out-there flavors like Sriracha Peanut Butter and Peanut Butter Curry. Regardless of your particular cookie proclivity, Cookie Brigade has you covered from start to finish. 

What can you do if you want to help this incredible organization? To volunteer to work with Cookie Brigade, you can join their Discord and website, and check out their online merch store. Hayden let me know that Cookie Brigade is starting to ramp up outside of their convention presence, so following them on their social media is a huge help in just getting the word out about their mission (here are the links to their Twitter, their Twitch, their Instagram, and their Facebook.) Share their good work for the world to see! 

To quote Hayden: 

“We can’t do this without the community. Our biggest strength as a charity and an organization is people continually showing up, donating, and buying our merchandise which allows us to continue to exist. It may be cliche to say, but we really can’t do this without the help of the PAX community.”

Cookie Brigade is really doing the Gaming Gods' work at PAX and beyond. How can you disagree with an organization that helps children through the toughest times in their lives among tons of other excellent causes, supports and celebrates gaming, and gets you delicious cookies? Join the Cookie Brigade community and do some good with your gaming!