NASHVILLE, Tenn. --
There's a baking marathon happening in one Goodlettsville woman's kitchen. For the next two days, Dana Hight will be baking her Dutch apple pies to say thank you to local firefighters.
Hight's pies have become a Sept. 11 tradition for local firefighters.
"I just felt like it needed to be done, so I'm doing it," she said.
Day and night, Hight and a few helpers will spend the next three days baking around the clock to turn out 70 pies. Her work began Thursday morning, but she said she can already feel it.
"I have a little hand brace over there, and I have a knot coming up on my arm, but I'm ignoring it," Hight said.
Those problems aren't slowing her down.
"All year long, they put their lives on the line for everybody else, and they need to be thanked and recognized for that. And if an apple pie on 9/11 does that, then they need one," said Hight.
Each pie is handmade. For those who want the recipe, all they need is 300 apples, 40 pounds of sugar, 30 pounds of flour and a dash of cinnamon.
"You'd be amazed at how quick it goes," Hight said. "You don't really realize, 'Oh my God, I just peeled 200 apples.'"
In past years, Hight got help from coworkers, and her company paid for the ingredients. But this year, she's paying out-of-pocket.
"With the economy, they let me go in June, and I thought, 'I've been doing this for so long; I don't know what I would do with myself.'"
It has become a tradition for her, too, and she said this Sept. 11, her pies will be there just as before.
"It's worth it," she said. "If I needed them, they'd be there."
Hight will hand deliver her apple pies to several fire halls Saturday.
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