Tag Archives: bakesale

Austin Bakes for Japan: A Huge Success

photo by @jote

It is so cool when after weeks of planning meetings, phone calls and emails to find locations and sponsors, flyering and talking about an event when it just seems to manifest out of thin air and go perfectly well. Since March I have been meeting with Shelly , Carly, Lisa, Rachelle, and Kathryn (one of the most organized people I have ever met) to plan the Austin Bakes Sale for Japan. I was a little worried on the actual day because all the people I had been planning with were running different locations and I didn’t even know any of the people (in real life) signed up at my location! It turned out there was no reason at all to be worried. I first stopped at Sugar Mama’s to pick up some vegan cupcakes from Kristen, and she completely loaded me up with trays and trays of Japan flag cupcakes and cowboy cookies. They proved to be the biggest selling item of the day even after the little flags started to melt.

photo by @jote

I got to Jo’s Coffee and the San Jose hotel a little early and was really worried because the area whole area was packed with classic cars revving their engines for the Hot Rod show. With the air thick with exhaust I was in a full blown panic; who the hell was going to want to buy baked goods in these circumstances??? At nine am all sorts of supplies and baked goods started pouring in and the cars started to leave and I realized everything was going to be just fine.

Michelle was the first to come in and brought so many beautiful treats she had made that we probably could have stopped right there and sold them the rest of the day. Nelly showed up a minute later and was a ton of help too. She and I had this really crazy incident a while later, we decided to walk around with a tray of cupcakes and go to all the businesses and see if we could drop of flyers. When we got to a thrift shop a girl asked me if the red velvet cupcakes had chocolate in them because she was deathly allergic. I called Kristen to check, and I couldn’t get her on her cell so I called Sugar Mama’s and I was on hold for a second. In the meantime, the girl went from looking at the cupcake to touching it to lovingly caressing it. When I got off the phone and gave her the bad news, that there was indeed chocolate in the cupcake, she shocked me by taking a bite. I said “wait, maybe you misunderstood! It does have chocolate!” she said it was so good and totally worth an allergic reaction and finished the whole thing! We couldn’t believe it.

Throughout the morning and the rest of the day more and more volunteers showed up with beautiful baked goods, I was overwhelmed with everyone’s generosity, another wonderful Michelle brought in another table that she practically filled with her beautiful displays and baked goods. Stephanie came in to represent Sugar Plump’s awesome contribution and Tara brought us even more vegan cupcakes! I think we had about 30 volunteers over the course of the day come by to donate things. It was really amazing! I met so many lovely people! In the end we decided to go long and try and make it to 3 pm because we still had too many baked goods left to fit in my car.

By the time I made it to the Bee Caves location, where the bakesale was going on until 5, I was teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown because I was way too hopped up on sugar and caffeine. Thank God Shelly was there and parked a shopping cart full of beer right next to me, and even gave me two for the road so that I didn’t have to leave my house again for the night! She is my hero!

When I got to bee caves I got to try some of the vegan baked goods from the other sales that were still left. Whoever made those oatmeal, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies needs to send me the recipe! Everything I tried was so great. The best part was that everyone thought the vegan food was terrific. I talked to so many people about it all day and when they weren’t raving about Kristen’s cupcakes it was the Red Rabbit Donuts.

photo by @jote

But I take it back, the absolute best part was that we made over $11,500 dollars for Japan! I am so proud to live in such a wonderful community!!! Wake me up the next time we have to help 🙂

Austin Bakes for Japan!

I am really excited to finally blog about the HUMONGOUS bakesale that we are going to have next Saturday on April 2nd.

A couple weeks ago Kathryn, the blogger behind The Austin Gastronomist mentioned on twitter that she wanted to set up the bakesale. I volunteered to help organize because I really wanted to do something for Japan. Last year, we had a lot of success with vegan bakesales for Haiti and I thought it would be really interesting to combine efforts with the whole Austin food community.

Since we started planning so many other people have joined up to organize and bake or donate money that it is kind of like the final scene in It’s a Wonderful Life, we now have 5 locations all over town, business sponsors, and lots of people signing up to help. Our goal is to earn 10,000 dollars for Americares, at first I thought that was crazy but now I think we can TOTALLY DO IT!

I really hope that the Austin vegan community will participate. So far, most of the people signed up are local foodies, and food bloggers & journalists and I want them all to see how wonderful our baked goods are and that the vegans in Austin are all so awesome and such a caring group. Plus I want to buy most of your delicious baked goods for myself.

I am also really excited to announce that the Red Rabbit Donut Cooperative is going to have their FANTASTIC donuts at the sale. If you haven’t tried them yet, you are going to be transported to a wonderful world where everything is made of donuts and filled with love. So please, sign up to donate baked goods, other items or volunteer at the tables with me. If you can’t be there for the sale I am happy to have you guys drop stuff off at my house the day before and I think we have another location too.

And please tell everyone you know about the bakesale. The more people that come out the better, folks can even donate online. There is no escaping it so give in already! I saw Isa post on twitter the other day “If you have hope for the world, then there’s hope for the world.” and honestly even that sentiment gives me hope.

red rabbit donuts will be in your mouth!