Cake4Kids: Volunteer bakers spread joy with birthday cakes for kids in need

East Bay Times
By Beth Jensen
May 27, 2016 3:41 p.m. (Updated: August 15, 2016 9:15 a.m.)

DANVILLE — Each month around the Bay Area, scores of home bakers rev up their mixers and take up their spatulas to whip up a little something special — birthday cakes for children they’ll never meet.

Each confection is a custom order, happily decorated with dinosaurs, ponies, superheroes, Justin Bieber’s face — whatever the recipient loves. Each creation will be a rare personal treat for an underprivileged child. For some, it will be his or her first birthday cake ever.

The bakers are all volunteers for the nonprofit organization Cake4Kids, which was started by Libby Gruender in Sunnyvale in 2010. Gruender died in 2013, but the small organization she founded now includes about 400 home bakers, who this year are expected to frost 2,000 birthday cakes for children who otherwise wouldn’t be blowing out any candles.

In past years, the organization has held an annual Cake-Off contest in Santa Clara County to honor bakers and raise funds. But now, with about half its volunteers based in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, the organization is having its first Cake-Off in the East Bay on June 11 in Danville.

There’s no shortage of need when it comes to birthday cakes, said the group’s executive director, Julie Eades.

“When we started, we primarily targeted foster care organizations and group homes,” she said. “We’ve since taken that a little further … We work with any agency with children who are underprivileged, such as domestic violence agencies. Sadly, we also work with some human trafficking agencies.”

Cake recipients are selected by local assistance groups from their client lists and range in age from toddlers to young adults coming out of the foster care system. All belong to families whose budgets can’t stretch far enough to provide a birthday treat.

“A lot of these people are living hand to mouth,” she said. “This area of incredible wealth is creating some of the worst poverty you can imagine … Most of these children are looked after by people paid to look after them, are moved from place to place, have hand-me-down clothes and never buy something for themselves. They live on the generosity of people around them.

“We had one youth in one of the agencies who had his very first birthday cake at the age of 20,” she added. “He couldn’t believe someone had baked a cake for him.”

Monument Crisis Center in Concord provides a range of services for about 10,000 low-income clients throughout Contra Costa County. At least 35 to 40 percent of those are children, said Executive Director Sandra Scherer. The agency receives about 10 cakes a month from Cake4Kids bakers.

“If you’re living on a budget, like most of our families, the average family of four has $300 left for the month after paying rent,” Scherer said. “That $300 is for transportation, clothing, shoes, utility bills and buying food … Things like birthdays are luxuries. It’s not that the families don’t want to provide for the kids.”

With a budget that tight, even buying the eggs and oil needed to make a boxed cake mix becomes prohibitive, Scherer said.

“A lot of our kids have never had a cake, never had a birthday party,” she said. “The family wouldn’t have the means to do it.”

Children chosen to receive cakes request a flavor and a theme. Bakers, who must maintain high quality standards, incorporate those requests into the cake, photograph the finished product and deliver the birthday treat, packaged in a professional bakery box, to the agency. The cakes are either picked up by a parent or delivered to the home by a case worker.

Requests run the gamut; Monument Crisis Center recently received a multicolor butterfly-themed cake, as well as one covered with pink and lilac zebra stripes.

“One year, we had a request for a girl on a painted horse throwing a football,” Eades recalled with a laugh. “One kid wanted a picture of Frank Sinatra on his cake; his old Italian grandfather had (shared) a record with him.”

Paula Dewberry, of Walnut Creek, is a passionate baker and first-time Cake4Kids volunteer. Her first assignment came from a girl asking for a vanilla cake featuring the cartoon character Peppa Pig. Dewberry already is planning how she’ll create the pink piggy face, complete with white chocolate eyes.

“I love to bake and so do both of my daughters, one of whom is 18 and the other 15 and a half,” she said. “I’m the official volunteer, but they’ll assist me whenever possible.”

“I could see myself doing one a month,” she said.

Receiving their own birthday cake helps children in difficult circumstances feel both special and normal, and it gives great pleasure to each home baker who volunteers, Eades said.

“We want (the bakers) to have real pleasure doing what they do, so it comes through in the cake,” she said. “We want the love baked into the cake.”

IF YOU GO

Cake4Kids Cake-Off will be held 3 to 5 p.m. June 11 at the Danville Community Center, 420 Front St. About 30 bakers will compete for cash prizes. Tickets, at $30 for adults and $15 for children ages 7-14, include unlimited cake tastings, refreshments, children’s activities and a silent auction featuring items such as wine, Giants tickets and a cabin rental at Donner Lake. Children under age 7 are free. For more information on participating in the event, obtaining tickets or becoming a Cake4Kids baker, go to www.cake4kids.org.

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