Bakery owner sweetens the season

One of about 30 servicemen on the flight, the Army captain told Veneto, a bakery shop owner, that he and the others were on their way home after serving a tour in Iraq. She listened intently as he talked about his service there and explained that he was nervous about seeing everyone again, especially his baby daughter. He wondered if she would remember him.

Veneto was struck by the captain’s story. “I took down his address and promised to send him cookies from the bakery. I just thought it was something nice to do for him,” said Veneto.

They parted ways at the airport, but not before Veneto had seen Brian Zickfoose reunite with his wife and daughter. The soldier’s story, and the reunion Veneto witnessed, changed her life and her business.

Known as Ginger Betty to her customers, Veneto owns Ginger Betty’s Bakery, on Samoset Avenue in Quincy. For the last 14 years, she has been making and selling gingerbread and sugar cookies, special-occasion cakes, and gingerbread houses. She has written a children’s book called “Ginger Betty the Gingerbread Girl” and has a series of follow-up books ready to go.

At the time she met Zickfoose, her life was full and her business was growing, so she had plenty to think about. But the captain and his family stayed in her head.

“When I returned to work after meeting Brian, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I knew I had to do something that could make a difference for service members and their families,” said Veneto. “I’d always wanted to start a foundation, so I thought this was a good opportunity.”

After giving it a lot of thought, Veneto began the G.I. Ginger Betty Foundation in November 2005.

“G.I. Ginger Betty just came to me while sitting in traffic one day,’’ said the 42-year-old Veneto. “I was thinking about how I can’t believe these kids are there fighting in this war and what their families go through every day. I wanted to use my bakery as a vehicle to create smiles within these families.”

Through the foundation, Veneto sends handmade gingerbread houses each holiday season to as many as 100 families of military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To the service members, she sends cases of her signature cookies, a package of four chocolate-drizzled gingersnaps, which travel well because “they have a great shelf life,” she says.

Veneto estimates she has sent more than 1,000 packages of cookies over the last four years, and several hundred gingerbread houses to families all over the country. Each house retails for $30 to $40 in her bakery, but she sends them at no charge.

The foundation is funded through house-party fund-raisers that she hosts and by donations from community groups and customers who simply like what she is doing, said Veneto. She sends cookies to troops and families based on word-of-mouth and by working with the local veterans’ agent and the Quincy Armory.

A friend of Veneto’s heard about what she was doing for the troops and their families, and contacted the Department of Defense. This past September, she was awarded the Seven Seals Award “for meritorious leadership and initiative in support of the men and women who serve America in the National Guard and Reserve.”

The Seven Seals Award represents the seven Guard and Reserve branches and is sponsored by the Employers Support of the Guard and Reserve, a Pentagon agency that works with employers of National Guard members and Reservists who may be called to active duty.

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch and other dignitaries, including a Pentagon representative, came to Ginger Betty’s to present Veneto with the award. Last month, she was recognized by the Quincy City Council for her service to the community.

Honored and surprised by the awards, Veneto said: “I’m just trying to create a little magic and smiles with cookies. I wonder if we are doing all that much to have earned this award?”

Captain Ryan Hanrahan of Hingham, whose Army unit has received her cookies, thinks that what Veneto does is deserving of the honor.

“The soldiers here endure long days in adverse conditions, most of them working 12-hour shifts in support of highly demanding missions,” Hanrahan said in an e-mail, on his third deployment in Iraq.

“For many of them, this is their second or third year-long deployment. It means so much to receive any mail, let alone cookies from a total stranger. I wish I had a video camera to capture their faces when they initially open their package. . . . Their reaction would illustrate the gratitude of such a small gift such as cookies. It boosts their morale and puts a smile on their faces knowing that the American public is very supportive. Beth continues to support the Global War on Terrorism one cookie or gingerbread house at a time.”

Veneto said she hopes to increase awareness of the G.I. Ginger Betty Foundation so she can expand her outreach to the troops in some way. On Nov. 29, the foundation will appear with the National Guard Armory in Quincy in the city’s Christmas parade, and each year she participates in the Christmas Festival at the World Trade Center in Boston.

She said that her “sharing cookies and making friends” motto enables Veneto to touch lives in ways that seem so simple. One of her favorite stories is of a young girl who had cancer, and when the Make-A-Wish Foundation offered her a wish, she asked to go to Ginger Betty’s.

“She could have gone to Disney World, but she wanted to come here,” said Veneto, who has a gingerbread house featured in the December issue of Food Network Magazine.

“That’s what makes me stop and say ‘this is why I’m doing this.’ ”

Wherever she goes, Veneto has a stash of cookies with her to give out. “It’s a perfect way to promote the business,” she said. But more important, said Veneto, the cookies she gives away enable her to meet “some amazing people” and help promote the G.I. Ginger Betty Foundation.

“The soldiers and their families are so appreciative of this little act of kindness,’’ she said.

“It makes it all worth it.”