Colorado's cookie girls

This is a local story that made national headlines--I can't help but be on the side of the girls, and I wonder how the "victim's" anxiety attacks are doing now that she's getting hate mail. Jeez, at 49, grow up already, honey. They're just cookies, not bombs. Hey, maybe I can sue the next "religious" group that bangs on my door for giving me anxiety! Or the U.P.S. guy who knocks on the door! Or the mailman who obviously needs something signed--gasp!--because here he comes to knock on my--gasp!--door. Some people, I swear...Ain't there enough to worry about for real on this planet than a couple of teenage girls being--gasp!--nice?

Cookie girls get big hand
KOA listeners pony up $4,000 to pay legal fees for bakers-turned-celebrities
By Felix Doligosa Jr., Rocky Mountain NewsFebruary 11, 2005

The last crumbs of the cookie case have been picked up.

Radio personalities Dave Logan and Scott Hastings of KOA-AM (850) gave $930 to Lindsey Zellitti and Taylor Ostergaard during their afternoon program Thursday. It was the amount the Durango teens were ordered to pay after being sued for a making an anonymous nighttime cookie delivery to a neighbor.

"Just to know people love and gave touched our hearts," said Ostergaard as she held back tears.

"It's been a rough experience, but we're not going to stop delivering cookies."

Wanita Renea Young, 49, sued the girls after they delivered two batches of cookies to her house last summer. The chocolate chip and sugar cookies each came with a note: "Have a great night" and "Love, The T and L Club."

Young said she suffered an anxiety attack after the delivery and a judge awarded her $930 for medical bills.

Her husband, Herb, said Thursday the couple has received "horrendous phone calls, tons of hate mail, threats to our life."

"It's horrible; nobody has heard our side," he said. "I don't believe the girls meant for this to happen. But they could have prevented it from happening if they had just shut their mouths when they came out of (small claims) court.

"Now they are caught in something they can't control."

The two 18-year-olds said they wanted only to do something nice for their neighbors when they decided to use a modified Betty Crocker recipe to make cookies.

"We felt really surprised when we were sued," said Zellitti, a freshman at Colby Community College in Kansas. "We didn't mean to harm her. We're glad to put it in the past."

The girls' story garnered widespread attention when they appeared on Good Morning America and were asked to be interviewed on several other national television shows. The Otis Spunkmeyer cookie company also named a cookie in their honor - calling it the "Kindness Cookie" - and the girls will determine the flavor of the treat.

"We're surround by cows and pigs," said Ostergaard, a senior at Durango High School. "We're not used to it (media attention). It's out of our element and it's been challenging."

When KOA heard about the case, it raised $4,000 from callers to help pay for the teens' legal expenses. The rest of the money was donated in their names to the Never Forgotten Fund, a scholarship fund for students in honor of those who died at Columbine High School in 1999.

The two girls plan to continue baking cookies, cakes and desserts for friends and strangers.

"We're not big on cooking," Ostergaard said. "Just enough to make people happy and full."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.