Jaime, here! Our real first blog post, in what I hope will be a wonderful series of helpful insight to our charity, and why we do what we do.
Yesterday I had the honor of helping Extraordinary Families, a nonprofit that helps foster youth, celebrate some very special birthdays. They host what is called a First Saturday of each month, to bring together aged-out foster youth to teach them valuable skills for the tough road ahead. Foster youth who turn 18 without being adopted is one of the toughest challenges - you're alone and expected to know how to function as an adult, many without support. I remember when I was 18 - there wasn't anything adult about me except my age! Extraordinary Families provides such fantastic support to these kids, and it was beautiful to watch them learn and grow.
The Program Director of First Saturdays was incredibly excited when we called to ask how we could help their cause. They celebrate everyone's birthdays for the month at First Saturdays, and so it was a perfect opportunity to "test" out our mission. As the founder of For Goodness Cakes, I took it upon myself to do the first bake-off - four different cakes (yellow butter cake with milk chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles, funfetti cake with vanilla frosting and nonpareil sprinkles, red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and red sprinkles, and a chocolate cake with fluffy white marshmallow frosting) to celebrate the four kids who had a birthday.
When they announced us at the end of the day's activities, the surprise was both beautiful and heartbreaking. One of the kids, it turns out, thought they were too old for cake. Another one never even got acknowledgement from their foster family. This was the exact reason I started this nonprofit - but it was my first time coming face to face with it, and I wasn't prepared for how absolutely heartbreaking it felt to actually hear in person. The smiles in their faces, the incredible appreciation of these amazing kids who just wanted to celebrate a birthday with someone - that was worth every second spent in the kitchen not just these last couple days, but my entire life to have prepared me to be able to provide great tasting cakes.
We're incredibly proud to have been able to help Extraordinary Families out, and can't wait until next month!
