Las Cruces and El Paso Chick-fil-A locations have teamed up with New Mexico State University and the University of Texas at El Paso to donate 50% of all chocolate chip cookies sales during the month of April to the Student Crisis Funds at each university in an event called Cookies for a Cause. 

Matt Carper, the owner of both the Lohman Avenue and the University Avenue Chick-fil-A locations, said that the idea originated from one of the Chick-fil-A operators in El Paso. 

“One of the operators in El Paso came up with the idea about ‘Hey, there’s a lot of college students that are hurting, they had jobs that they don’t have anymore, they have other issues, they have families,’” Carper said. “That’s when we started reaching out to UTEP and NMSU on what would be a good way for us to support the Crisis Fund.” 

Carper explained that 50% of cookie sales will go to the Crisis Fund at NMSU and UTEP and one-third of the remaining sales will go to NMSU and the other two-thirds will go to UTEP. 

“50 percent of cookie sales, so basically all the profits and then some, of any cookie we sell will go to the Crisis Fund for NMSU and UTEP,” Carper said. “We’re splitting at a ratio of about 2:3, so El Paso will get two-thirds of the money and then NMSU will get one-third, which is pretty fair.” 

El Paso has eight Chick-fil-A locations compared to Las Cruces’s two locations. 

“That was also nice of them, because we’ll not only be getting the proceeds from our two locations, but we’ll probably pick up a small percentage off of their eight locations as well, so that’s really cool of those guys to support our smaller town as well,” Carper said.  

Maddie Anthony, a junior at NMSU and team leader at the University Avenue Chick-fil-A, has felt the support pouring from Chick-fil-A during this event.  

“I definitely feel really supported as an NMSU student, especially knowing that my own job is actually doing the supporting and putting so much into the NMSU funds,” Anthony said. “It just feels super supportive and like I’m just surrounded by a really good cause.” 

According to Anthony, people from the Las Cruces community are eager to donate to Cookies for a Cause. 

“I’ve [had] a lot of cookie sales, especially since we’ve been making it known about the cookie fundraiser,” Anthony said. “The sales have really gone up, and we’ve even had people try to give extra on the side, just as a donation.” 

Anyone can go to any Chick-fil-A in Las Cruces or El Paso, buy a cookie and their purchase will go towards the Student Crisis Fund. Carper said that participating in the event as a customer is an easy process. 

“Anytime anyone comes through and buys a cookie, it doesn’t matter how you do it, you don’t have to mention anything or say ‘hey, I want this to go to the cause,’” Carper said. “At the end of the month, we’re just going to tally any cookie that was sold and we’re just literally going to take half that sales price right off the top and put it into the main fund, and then one-third of that fund is going to come into NMSU.”