Me? A baker?

The first week of freshman year of college my mom sent me a HUGE box of homemade cookies. Now let me preface this with what 'homemade' meant in my house growing up when it came to baking... If you put it in the oven yourself, it earned the title 'homemade'. So, my sweet mother sent enough cookies to feed a small army and I marched down the hall of my dorm passing cookies out and trying to make new friends with the people that lived on my floor. I get to the end of the hall and the girl living in the room, Brooke, says, "Wow, are these homemade?" Hmmm... How to answer.... So I tell her, "Sure, my mom made them." So Brooke takes a bite and sure enough, what does she pull out of her mouth? A piece of the slice and bake wrapper.

So up until recently this was what I thought of when I thought of baking. Then, I got involved with a great organization called Camp For All Kids. You see, I went to sleep-away camp growing up. It was the most amazing place, where we could be ourselves, and learn what kind of person we wanted to be. It was home, but better. I would have much rather gotten in trouble with my parents than with the director of my camp. My 'second father' as I thought of him. Looking back on it though, every kid there was from a middle to upper class family and almost every kid was caucasian. The great thing about Camp For All Kids is, through camperships (scholarships), they help to bring ethnic diversity to the camps that they work with. They enable kids who for many different reasons, but especially financially, wouldn't be given the opportunity to attend these camps. This was very close to my heart because of how much my camp meant to me.

I wanted to get involved and the main thing they need was help with fundraising. I've never done a moments worth of fundraising in my life. What on earth would I do? A bakesale? But, I don't bake. So here I am, holding a bakesale. Since I have a design background, I decided in order for people to but them they would have to be eye-catching. So here we go... For my first attempt it wasn't too bad, and people were very generous when they heard where the money was going.

Since then, I've become completely obsessed with baking and decorating cookies, learning new techniques, and trying to challenge myself. All of my proceeds are donated to Camp For All Kids. Hopefully, through the money raised from my cookie biz, I'll be able to change at least one kid's life. Now, let me see if I can figure out how to post some pics of that first attempt for you...