Cakes celebrate milestones for kids in shelters, foster care

Cake4Kids volunteer baker Tina Sampson was recently highlighted as an Everyday Hero by ABC Denver7! Watch Denver7’s segment about Tina and Cake4Kids below!

By: Kevin S. Krug
Posted at 10:15 PM, Jun 19, 2022
and last updated 6:49 AM, Jun 20, 2022

It takes a lot of practice to become an expert cake decorator. Luckily for the bakers who are part of the Northern Colorado chapter of Cake4Kids, they have bakers like Tina Sampson to help give them a hand.

ARVADA, Colo. – It takes a lot of practice to become an expert cake decorator. Luckily for the bakers who are part of the Northern Colorado chapter of Cake4Kids, they have bakers like Tina Sampson to help give them a hand.

Over the last year and a half, the 300-plus bakers who are part of the chapter have made more than 1,000 cakes for kids who are in foster care, shelters and other programs where they might not always get a special cake for graduations, birthdays and other milestones.

Of those 1,000 cakes, Sampson has baked and decorated more than 30 herself.

“I think it doesn't hurt, right, to put a little extra love in what you're doing so that the kids can feel that too,” she said with a smile. “One of the cakes that I baked last year that I'll always remember was for a 5-year-old girl who was in a domestic abuse shelter. And I did get emotional when I was making her cake.”

There are more than 20 Cake4Kids chapters across the nation, but only one in Colorado right now. Executive Director Alison Bakewell said the volunteers put their own time, money, and love into what they baked because they know if the kids’ birthdays aren’t getting celebrated, there are probably other important milestones in their lives that aren’t getting celebrated either.

“What we're really trying to do is making sure that they know someone who doesn't even know them cares — that they're worth the time and effort a volunteer takes and puts into the cakes or cupcakes that they back,” she said.

• To learn how you can volunteer or donate to Cake4Kids, click here.

The kids who receive the cakes can request any flavor and any decoration. Sampson said cakes with swirled flavors and red velvet cakes are some of the most popular cakes being requested right now. Whatever the flavor, whatever the theme, Sampson puts a little something extra in it from her heart.

“I feel like the giving for me is also putting the love and the energy into the product so that the child receiving it might feel that energy and that love coming from the baker," she said.

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Cake4Kids Boulder seeks more bakers to create sweet memories for foster, homeless kids

The Daily Camera
By April Morganroth
Monday, May 17, 2021 8:25 pm (Updated May 18, 2021 11:27 am)

Amy Klein, Cakes4Kids ambassador for Northern Colorado, sits for a portrait in her kitchen at her home in Niwot on Monday. The organization makes and donates birthday cakes to foster kids. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)

Boulder-based Cake4Kids is expanding and looking for bakers to help create birthday and graduation cakes for youth in domestic violence and homeless shelters as well as foster kids.

Ambassador of Northern Colorado Cake4Kids Amy Klein said the Boulder chapter of Cake4Kids is expanding and in need of help in addition to donations.

“Some of our bakers bake once a month and some have already baked 25 or more cakes, but we just really need more volunteers willing to bake for these kids,” Klein said.

She added, “It could just be that special spark in any kiddo’s life, whose life probably hasn’t been overly fair to them up to this point — we can provide some magic for one day.”

Klein was introduced last summer by a friend to the national nonprofit and by the fall she had the first Colorado chapter up and running.

“We made our first delivery in November and since then have delivered over 250 cakes and treats to underserved kids in the greater Boulder area,” Klein said.

Cake4Kids started more than 10 years ago in California by Libby Gruender who in 2010 had read a news story about a recently placed foster girl who had never received a birthday cake until her foster mother made her one. Since that day, Gruender partnered with volunteers and agencies across the U.S. to bake cakes for underserved children.

Now, spanning across 11 states, the nonprofit has delivered more than 25,000 free birthday and graduation cakes.

Klein, a mother of three, said she volunteered to open the first Colorado chapter because “birthday cakes are magical for children and it motivated me as a mom to bring that same smile I see on my children’s faces to the faces of other kids who otherwise may not have gotten a birthday cake.”

“We believe the simple gesture of a birthday cake has the ability to make the child feel valued and raises self-esteem,” she said.

Some of the agencies Northern Colorado Cake4Kids serve include: A Precious Child; Access Opportunity; Sister Carmen Community Center; TGHTR (formerly Attention Homes); as well as several domestic violence shelters and homeless shelters.

“Right now we are working on expanding our chapter into Fort Collins and beyond and also looking for bakers who want to help us serve our community,” Klein said. “The cakes are completely customized to the child and it’s so fun to see what they come up with.”

She said the top cake design requests include unicorns and Denver sports teams.

Despite kick starting during the coronavirus pandemic, Klein said the support from the community has been “truly amazing and we’re thrilled because people have stepped up in incredible ways.”

Auguste Escoffier School Of Culinary Arts in Boulder scheduled webinars “for our bakers to teach them how to bake better and provided decoration tips — like for example the frosted lettering on the cakes.”

In December, Niwot-based DRF Team real estate partnered up with Klein to host a gingerbread house contest and donated the proceeds to the nonprofit so it could provide treats during the holidays to foster youth.

She said, “We are still fairly new and looking into a number of different ways to expand and fundraise but will be partnering with DRF Reality again this Christmas season.”

Klein said she wants residents who are thinking about about volunteering “to know that you don’t have to be a pastry chef or professional baker to be one of our volunteers — you just have to have basic baking skills and have the heart to serve these kids.”

“The hardest part is not seeing the joy in these kids faces because we don’t get to delivery the cakes to them personally due to privacy laws but knowing that a child is smiling because of a cake we made is by far rewarding in itself,” Klein said.

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Tinker and Bake Blog Post featuring Cake4Kids: Bags, Tips and Couplers...Oh My!

Meghann Shaffer, a Chef Instructor with the Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, and owner of Blackbird Baking Company in Fort Collins, CO, recently shared great baking tips for piping borders and flowers and creating beautiful lettering with the Cake4Kids bakers in Northern Colorado.

Her recent blog post covers some great tips and mentions Cake4Kids!

Check it out on her page here: https://tinkerandbake.com/2021/05/16/bags-tips-and-couplers-oh-my/