The Bake Sale

I have to toot Katelyn's horn for a minute. So please excuse me.

When the kids went back to school after Christmas break we learned that one of the teacher's granddaughter, who is only 4 years old, had been diagnosed with cancer. All of the kids at the school were very concerned and worried, as were alot of parents. (You can read her story here: jessicasmiracle.blogspot.com)

One afternoon Kate came home from school and started talking about how she and a few of her friends wanted to raise some money for Jessica. I must admit that I kind of brushed it off. That week I was busy trying to get ready for Josh's baptism and a million other things, so I told her we'd talk about it the next week. Secretly I thought she'd forget about it. Not so.

The next week came and she reminded me of my promise that we'd talk about it. So, she explained that they wanted to have a bake sale and we began to make some plans. A week later, after lots of phone calls, text messages, Facebook posts, and flyers were passed out we began to bake. And not surprisingly we had ALOT of friends and family offer to help.

Friday, January 28th was the big day ... BIGGER than we could ever have imagined. It was set to start at 3:00 and at 2:45 people started coming ... ALOT of people! I was overwhelmed by the number of treats that my friends provided, by the number of people that came to our little bake sale and most of all by the generosity of everyone. By 5:30 we had completely sold out of treats! It was AMAZING!


When we had everything cleaned up, we headed inside to count the money. Kate and I had said that we would be really happy if we made $500, which was a pretty lofty goal. But as we started counting I knew we'd be much higher than that. In fact, as the total started to rise, Marcia, Ashley and I started to cry. When all was said and done we raised $1,700! I was blown away! People were SO generous! I had family mail me money to donate. We had strangers just drive by and give us money. We had more than one family give us $100! It was incredible and really touched me.

I am VERY proud of Kate, Kenna, Jaden, Kaden, Kaylee, Demri, and Aleia for working so hard to make a difference. It was great to share this experience with them and hopefully it had the same kind of impact on their lives as it did mine. One small idea can turn into something amazing sis! Thanks for inspiring me! I love you!

The Bake Sale Beauties ...
Demri, Abi, Kenna, Kaylee, Kate, and Aleia


Our sign boys who directed lots of traffic our way ...
Kaden and Jaden


Depositing the money at the bank
Kenna, Kaylee, Bailia, Aleia, Kate, Demri, Kaden, Jaden and Cooper