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Participant Stories
Here are some success stories from the 2010 Great American Bake Sale Participants.
Team Cosmo Cakes
Newtown, PA
The Women’s Intrinsic Network (WIN) at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in Newtown, Pennsylvania is a group that supports the development of Lockheed Martin women by providing a forum for mentoring, networking, education, and action. As a member of this group, I wanted to do something that would help develop my leadership skills, but be a fun activity that everyone would want to be involved in. One day, while watching my favorite show, Ace of Cakes, I noticed a commercial for Great American Bake Sale. Since I love baking and decorating cakes as a hobby, I decided that I wanted to hold a bake sale at work. I gathered a group of women from the WIN group and formed Team Cosmo Cakes. After a month of hard planning, we held our bake sale on June 29th, 2010. We raised $4500, which exceeded our goal of $3000! We had a lot of fun during our bake sale and it was a nice event for everyone on our work campus to get involved in. I can’t wait until next year for our 2nd Annual Great American Bake Sale!
~ Danielle Williams
Great Chappaqua Bake Sale
Chappaqua, NY
When the idea for the first-ever Great Chappaqua Bake Sale to support Share Our Strength was discussed, we envisioned a small circle of families and children getting together to help fight the national childhood hunger crisis. What followed exceeded our expectations and proved an invaluable lesson to us all about the power of community. We raised over $5,700 and learned that, yes; even a small community can make a big difference in the fight against childhood hunger!
Forty plus families took to their kitchens to bake favorite family recipes. Ten local restaurants and bakeries donated their delicious cakes, pies, loaves and other treats. Twenty plus businesses donated goods and services for our community raffle. People volunteered their time to work at our bake sale and everyone helped spread the word about this important event.
We know that just $25 can feed one child three healthy meals for a month and that $200 can help buy grocery bags of healthy foods for 50 families in need. It is gratifying to know how many children will be impacted by the money we raised together.
The first-ever Great Chappaqua Bake Sale gave us all an opportunity to raise awareness of this important cause as well as teach our children about the meaning of charity. We are looking forward to the 2nd Annual Great Chappaqua Bake Sale to support Share Our Strength’s goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015.
~ Jessica Reinmann, Holly Blum, Allison Spiegel
Grundy Worldwide
Harleysville, PA
I'm a big fan of the Food Network and saw Sandra Lee endorsing the bake sale last year. Great American Bake Sale is just such an amazing concept and event, and I think the money goes to such a good cause. As soon as I saw the advertisement this year, I started planning!
I work for a family owned insurance agency called Grundy Worldwide, where we sell collector vehicle insurance. There are about 60 employees, and we're always celebrating in our office. We make cakes or brownies for birthdays, showers, graduations, and holidays. We love to bake and we love to eat. So I thought I'd try hosting a week long Great American Bake Sale at work in the office lunchroom.
Eight women participated as bakers and the rest of the office bought the baked goods. We made $225.00. I can't tell you how proud I am of all the women who baked for such a good cause. We sold brownies, cinnabuns, rice krispie treats, puddings, spiced nuts, loaves of bread, muffins, chocolate covered strawberries, well you get the idea. The best part was watching my office pull together and support this charity.
~ Nicole Marketta
Karen's Bake Sale
New York, NY
A friend told me about Great American Bake Sale after finding out that I am an avid home baker and enjoy doing charity work for children. After looking into Share Our Strength, I decided it would be the perfect event for me to hold. Most of my volunteers were my friends. I was floored by their kindness and willingness to help. We sold a wide variety of baked goods including Vegan Green Tea cupcakes with almond frosting, Strawberry Oatmeal Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, Jameson Whiskey Chocolate Cupcakes with Bailey's frosting, Vegan Fig Scones ,Chocolate Cranberry Scones, Vegan Oatmeal Cookies, Pistachio Apricot Biscotti, Fois Gras Dog Biscuits, and homemade vanilla and coffee ice cream sandwiches. And we had a cookie decorating station with icing and sprinkles and sugar cookies. Everything sold out except for a few sugar cookies and biscotti. The Strawberry Oatmeal Cupcakes and Chocolate Cranberry Scones sold the fastest. It was just so much fun baking and then sharing my baked goods with my friends for a good cause. Having the kids come in to the cookie decorating stand was really fun, too. Including online donations, I raised about $900! Can't wait for next year!
~ Karen Lin
