Around the nation every holiday season, there always seems to be one hot ticket item that everyone wants but that sells out quickly.
Cabbage Patch Kids. Furby. Tickle Me Elmo.
But here in Kokomo during Christmas time, the hot ticket item doesn’t come in the form of a doll or a laughing red Muppet.
It comes in the form of a little round ball full of beef, cheese and chives or some other delectable combination.
According to some We Care officials, the cheeseball is about as synonymous with the organization this time of year as the Trim-A-Tree Festival, the Hope doll or the upcoming telethon.
Every year, volunteers create between 2,500-3,000 cheeseballs, and they sell out most of the time.
So why is the cheeseball so popular, and what is the secret to its success?
It turns out, per those same volunteers, that the secret is a whole lot of love.
Jackie May is We Care’s treasurer, on the organization’s board and oversees the We Care Store, located at 1700 E. Sycamore Road, and she explained that it was actually the Delta Theta Tau sorority that created and sold the cheeseballs for several years.
The group then donated all of their profits from the cheeseball sales to We Care, May added.
“Then little by little, they lost a lot of their ladies that helped out, and they were going to just give it up,” she said. “That’s when someone from We Care picked up the ball and ran with it. … Now we have several volunteers who help create the cheeseballs and keep up with the tradition every year.
“And it’s been popular from the get-go,” May added. “People come and want them right away. It’s not unheard of to sell 10 at a time. One year during the tree festival, someone even came in and bought 15. … I mean, can it be We Care and not have cheeseballs? It’s a tradition. And we have always used the same recipe too. The secret is that if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”
Brianne Boles, CEO and president of Bona Vista Programs, agreed with May.
Boles has been volunteering her time to help create the cheeseballs for the last few years, and she told the Tribune creating 3,000 cheeseballs is a bigger undertaking than people might think.
But it’s all worth it, she added.
“I think it just goes back to the impact that We Care has,” she said. “The cheeseballs are a small token of revenue generated to help give back. We Care has a history of giving back, and people don’t have a problem with helping out, whether it’s through buying cheeseballs or bidding on a telethon item, because they know their money is going toward a good cause.”
And that’s perhaps the crux of it all, officials note.
We Care cares about Kokomo, and Kokomo cares about We Care.
And that includes everything from the chips and dips to the soup mixes and cheeseballs.
“Obviously the recipe is what holds it all together,” volunteer Jennifer Whited said. “There’s a recipe you follow. But they talk about love is what makes a recipe. I think it’s the purpose behind it. We know that when we’re making these, it’s not, ‘Oh we’re just throwing together a cheeseball.’ We know that the money that these cheeseballs bring in, it’s going right back into our community. It’s helping those people who are in need.
“When I was younger and watching the telethon on TV, never in a million years did I think I’d be now helping out making cheeseballs,” she added. “But it’s exciting. We Care and its telethon is something I look forward to every year. And it’s the same way with the cheeseballs. It’s just something that’s always been there. Yes, it’s a little piece of food, but it’s also just a little piece of home too.”
