CHARLOTTE – The Charlotte-based Lance Corporation is lending a helping hand to an Ohio-based cookie plant that closed two months ago, leaving almost 300 people unemployed.

Archway Cookies, based in the small town of Ashland, was forced to filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and close its doors.

Lance bought the company at a bankruptcy auction, and last week, 60 workers were asked to return immediately, with more coming back in the coming months.

Lance officials said they will pay the workers at the same rates they were making before, which is an average of $14.93 per hour.

But they didn’t stop at rehiring. Just before Christmas, the company surprised former employees with $1,500 Visa gift cards.

“I was crying. I’m like, ‘pinch me, pinch me,’ and it just kept getting better,” Baker Rita Devan said. “They said, ‘You’re going to get your card tonight.’ What are these people doing? They don’t know me.”

Lance officials said production of Archway cookies is scheduled to resume soon. They said they hope to have the plant fully operational by the end of 2009.