On Saturday, I held my first bake sale for Share Our Strength – an organization that fights childhood hunger in America. I first learned about Share Our Strength while watching the Food Network – about a year ago. Ever since, I have been thinking about hosting a bake sale. More recently, I have been reading a lot of the statistics about hunger in America, and it made me realize how incredibly blessed I have been. I know I am guilty of complaining about having “nothing to eat” when there is a pantry full of food in my kitchen… just not what I was hungry for. I have really taken for granted the fact that my husband and I live a very comfortable life and never worry about putting food on the table.
With all of those thoughts floating around in my head, I was reminded that our neighborhood was having its annual yard sale. About a week ago, it dawned on me that the yard sale would be a great time to host a bake sale and try to do something to help those who are less fortunate. So, I signed up for the Great American Bake Sale with Share Our Strength and got things started. I had about one week to pull everything together, so I was not able to do nearly as much as I would have liked. All things considered, though, I am happy with the turnout.
I spent all day on Friday – about 14 hours, I think – baking for the sale. I managed to make quite a few items for the sale:
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Cranberry Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Brownies and Brownie Bites
- Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing
- Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing
- Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing
- Cinnamon Rolls
In addition to the goodies that I baked, two of our good friends also donated some delicious brownies!
My sous chef (our yellow lab – appropriately named Yellowdog) spent the day with me in the kitchen. She was exhausted from all of the baking – and disappointed that I didn’t give her any cupcakes!
As always, I made a bit of a mess in the kitchen. I try to clean up as I go, but I always seem to wind up with a sink full of dirty dishes. Unfortunately, the sous chef can’t reach high enough to help with the dishes… So, I had to take care of those on my own.
I stayed up late on Friday night preparing for the sale – printing out labels with the Share Our Strength logo and statistics about childhood hunger. I also packaged all of the goodies and got everything ready to go for Saturday morning. Additionally, I took the opportunity to give away a few of my mini-moo cards from Foodbuzz!
On Saturday, I got up bright and early in preparation. The yard sale was scheduled to begin at 8:00am, but we had customers immediately after we opened our garage door a few minutes before 7:00am. The cinnamon rolls were immediately a hit – especially early in the morning. I quickly sold out of the cinnamon rolls, much to the dismay of a few of my neighbors who stopped by for seconds.
As the day progressed, I also sold out of both flavors of cookies and the carrot cake cupcakes. I had packaged cupcakes in half-dozen boxes to take home, and those were all gone within a few hours. My cookies by-the-dozen also sold out very quickly!
By noon, I had about 10 individual cupcakes left and one or two individually wrapped brownies. The crowds had died down, so we decided to pack up shop and go for a walk with our friends and the doggy who had been a good sport all day.
Bake Sale Results…
Now, a few days later, the money has been counted and the donations are in. The official numbers for my first bake sale are…
| Online Contributions | $85.00 |
| Cash Donations (Day of Sale) | $25.00 |
| Bake Sale Proceeds | $125.00 |
| Total | $235.00 |
I am pleased to announce that I surpassed my goal of $150.00 (by over 50%), thanks to the help of everyone who contributed and purchased baked goods. The sale was a huge success!!
Giveaway Winner…
And last, but certainly not least, the winner of my baker’s care package is Alice from Savory Sweet Life… Congratulations!
Thanks again to all who supported my bake sale! I am already looking forward to hosting another one and continuing to support Share Our Strength!
Wow Jen, everything you made looks awesome. And $3.50 for a dozen cookies?… what a steal! What a beautiful way to share your love of baking with a wonderful organization. I’m very proud of you! I’m also excited to have won. Thanks!
Alice
Everything looks fantastic! I should really look into the Share our Strength bake sale too. I often feel like sometimes we forget all the people in our own country. You did a great job and it’s very inspiring to see all the hard work you did for a great organization. Thanks for sharing:)
This is so honorable of you. I’m glad you had such a great turn out. Congrats!
That’s so awesome! I’m glad the result were double than you had anticipated.
Thank you for sharing this experience with us.
This is really inspiring. I am going to look into doing this!
You did an awesome job.
;) amy
I feel so bad. I meant to come and donate on Saturday. And I totally forgot in my busy day. You did a great job! You did so much baking. Everything looked delicious! Congratulations for making you goal and surpassing it!
I love this post! What a beautiful thing you did. It reminds me that I don’t speak about Second harvest and my favorites enough. Yay to you.
Alice – thanks again for your support! I’ll be sending the package out either today or tomorrow!
Nutmeg Nanny – I agree that we often forget those who live close to us because we are worried about saving the world – both are important… but it’s nice to support a charity that works in our communities.
Elaina – Thanks for checking out the post!
Jenn – Thanks for all of your encouragement along the way!
Amy – You should definitely check it out – it’s a great experience!
Reeni – If you still want to donate, I think you can on my site… I’m not sure how to “end” the bake sale officially, so I think donations are still accepted. Or better yet, maybe have a bake sale of your own!
Claudia – Thanks… I don’t do enough of this either – Hoping to keep it up more from this point on.
Awesome job, Jen! I wanted to ask you for the recipe – these sound fabulous!!:
“Cranberry Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies”
-Kendra :)
Congrats! You did such a great job, way to make a difference.