Fairfax County Times
By Laura Scudder
January 14, 2022
Northern Virginia’s chapter has served nearly 2,000 cakes since 2019
From birthdays to graduation celebrations, one organization has the cake covered for underserved youth. Cake4Kids in Northern Virginia partners with 80-90 agencies in the area, creating cakes for special events. After almost three years, they have about 500 volunteers who have all baked and delivered nearly 2,000 cakes.
Cake4Kids was originally founded in California by Libby Gruender. Mary Campbell, the Cake4Kids ambassador for Northern Virginia, learned of the organization and reached out to see how she could become involved.
Northern Virginia became the first chapter outside of California in 2019, and Campbell now works for the national organization in operations.
“It’s gotten extremely big and busy quickly. We have just a great community here of people that want to help, and it’s just kind of blown up,” she explained, also saying that the company has expanded into other states.
Campbell explained that the kids and youth range from 1-24 years old. She noted that this was due to the fact that the chapter followed California’s guidelines about what signifies the age of transition to adulthood.
Campbell said that the children get to choose the flavor and theme of their cake — and it can be as elaborate or simple as they wish. Bakers will then sign up to bake and deliver the cake.
“Our bakers, who are tremendous … a lot of them will watch and see if there’s cakes still sitting there, and they’re hell-bent on making sure that every child gets their cake and that we don’t cancel,” she said. “I’ll get emails that say ‘Don’t cancel that cake, I’ll take it’ … Here in Northern Virginia, we have never canceled on a child. So we’ve delivered every single one and the bakers are very supportive of each other.”
While she credits all the bakers for being creative and taking great care with each cake, Campbell said that she has seen some truly amazing designs — including a cake that looked like a bowl of baked beans.
In general, Cake4Kids will ask for about two weeks to bake a cake, though they have pulled things together sooner. For Campbell, baking for as many people as possible is important.
“I think that is one of the biggest rewards for me to know that we’re helping families and we’re bringing smiles to the children. We’re making a lot of kids happy,” she said.
Those looking to volunteer can go to the website to sign up — and all levels of baking experience are welcome, Campbell noted.
She said that not everyone can make a baked bean cake, but if you have basic decorating abilities the help is welcome. All bakers provide their own ingredients and materials.
“We do reimburse our bakers up to $100 a year on decorating classes. A lot of our bakers, take cookie decorating and cake decorating, and things like that. So even … if you don’t feel you’re at that level, a lot of baker’s start at cookies and brownies and cupcakes and work their way up to the cakes and take classes in between. So we’re happy to have all abilities,” Campbell explained.
She also noted that the caseworkers do their best to provide feedback from the celebrations and that sometimes bakers receive thank you notes from the children themselves.