Giving Back To Community With A Birthday Cake Pan Kit For Food Pantry
What a great way to give back to your community! This would also be a good service project for students looking for service hours or to volunteer with an organization. In today’s world there is so much struggle going on so many families. I’m not sure of the percentage for your community, but, I do know that families are in need of help to put food on the table these days. For whatever reason, economy, job loss, inflation, etc., and it doesn’t really matter the reason. What does matter is that we are able to help our community and the families that live in them. For all you know you have a neighbor who is in need, or your child’s friend’s family is in need, or it could very well be a family member of your own. We all need help now and again and what makes the world a better place is lending a hand. This may look different for you and I, but, I know that the Food Pantries in our community don’t have a Birthday Cake Kit on their shelves and some families don’t have the resources to bake a Birthday cake, so, we think this is a great way to give back to the community and help families.
So, my daughter and I did some research and found some items were cheaper at one store than another. We started out at Walmart for the Confetti cake mix and frosting. The frosting happened to be on clearance and wasn’t about to expire anytime soon, so we grabbed them all! We then grabbed a case of Sprite. One can of Sprite is used in lieu of water, eggs and oil in the cake mix and most pantries don’t have eggs on the shelf so this works out perfect. Next, we headed to Dollar Tree and found a foil pan with the plastic lid to hold everything in place. We will need to tape the lid down when it’s is filled. Found some fun Happy Birthday napkins and matching paper plates, too! We’ll put just part of the package in one pan and the other half in another. Then we found some Birthday candles, what’s a Birthday cake without candles?! Found some fun party horns, too! Before you knew it our pan was full of Birthday Fun for a family in need and my heart was happy! You can put whatever you wanted in this pan and donate as many as you would like. We know that even one will make a difference and bring some happiness into a Birthday Celebration!
Some ideas you might consider if you take on this project are as follows:
Ask a local business if they would be willing to put a donation box at their location, or, better yet, as your local church if they would do the same. Collect the donations as you have the time and begin to fulfill these pans and bring them to your local pantry.
This would be a nice service for any of the Scouts to participate in and again put together as many kits as you can to bring to the pantry.
High school students, and college students require service hours and they could either help reach out for donations to fulfill them or help you put them all together to bring to the pantry.
A great opportunity to share with another organization to learn if they would help with this project, too.
Wonderful opportunity to meet people, organizations, business’s and places in your own community.
The original story came from a young boy who had never had a Birthday cake. That alone saddens me. I don’t know who came up with this idea, but we sure do love it, we’re on it and we’ll do our best to bring Birthday Cake Pan Kits to more local communities!
The items needed may vary, keep an eye out for sales and let others donate to your service project! Gather a group to help fulfill, wrap and deliver these and make it a team effort! After filling these up we discovered that taping the lid to the bottom might leave tape residue and didn’t want that on the pan used for baking, so, we added cardboard on the outside bottom of the pan and then placed the pan on top to fill. Then we wrapped it with a pretty ribbon for drop off. I think the next time though, we’ll wrap the kit in saran wrap and add a bow, it will be more sturdy as we don’t know how often they will be picked up from the pantry and to make them sturdy is better for transportation.
TELL me and I forget, TEACH me and I remember, INVOLVE me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin