The mission of Sweet Blessings is a piece of cake. Literally. Ashley Gann, founder and executive director of the not-for-profit organization, believes every child deserves to have a cake for his or her birthday. To fulfill this mission, Gann and a group of volunteers gather every Monday at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Frankfort and every Tuesday at Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church in Lexington to bake and decorate cakes that will be delivered to local children, ages 5 to 14 years, who live in poverty or are experiencing a life-threatening illness.
The idea for Sweet Blessings came to Gann rather like an unbaked cake — feelings and unformed ideas were the batter; research into other similar organizations and learning about decorating was the baking stage; and hearing her pastor talk about outreach efforts in downtown Lexington was the icing on the cake.
Although she had been thinking about going back to school to work on her doctorate in public health, Gann felt something was telling her to do something different.
“I was really stressed out about the whole process — who wants to write a dissertation anyway?” she said.
Well, “stressed” spelled backward is “desserts,” and the idea came to her.
“I thought, ‘I’ll make cakes!’” she recalled. “It was one of those moments in life that you never forget, because it was just so weird.”
She had been praying for direction for several years, but she didn’t know where this “cake thing” would take her.
“I’ve always been kind of crafty and liked to play around and create stuff, but I had never been a baker,” she said. So she took a job at a cake shop during the wedding season to learn some skills.
“It wasn’t long till I really felt God telling me to spend more time making a difference and less time making a living,” she said.
She learned about other organizations that helped people find bakers who would make a cake for an ill child, but she wanted to do something more hands-on than simply maintaining a database.
“That’s when it really hit me that children who are sick are not the only children living in crisis,” Gann said. “Children living in poverty have their own kind of crisis every day. They also miss out on that opportunity on their birthdays to really be celebrated for who they are. Most of the time that is because of the financial stress on the family.”
Gann decided to rise to the occasion with Sweet Blessings. She delivered its first cake in February 2011. She now works with several referral sources, such as social workers and school counselors, to find children who need Sweet Blessings.
The most important aspect of Sweet Blessings is discovering the individual child’s likes and interests — even their favorite colors. This information has led to the creation of cakes with superhero, movie and sports themes, and to singular cakes such as one that reflected a child’s interest in the Titanic and another’s desire to become a doctor.
“Whatever that child likes, that’s what they’re going to get on their cake,” Gann said.
A personalized birthday card with a Bible verse accompanies every cake, which a volunteer prays over before boxing it up for delivery. The referral source takes the cake to the child; Gann and her volunteer bakers rarely do so.
“If we were there, it would be like, ‘Oh, you made the cake,’ and it’s not about us,” Gann said. “We’re able to keep it all about the child.”
Sweet Blessings creates about 25 cakes a week. The volunteer bakers and decorators run the gamut from high-school students to retirees. Having a baking or cake-decorating background is not necessary.
“Most of our volunteers have never decorated before they started coming to help,” Gann said. “We train them when they walk in the door.”
That’s what happened with Allee Bolton, who heard about Sweet Blessings at church and thought it sounded “amazingly fun.”
“I’d never done any decorating before,” she said. “You slowly learn all the little tricks.”
Connie Malone has been working with Gann almost from the very beginning. A former prosecutor who handled numerous child-welfare cases, Malone says volunteering with Sweet Blessings combines two of her greatest interests: children and baking. Like many others, she learned decorating by doing.
“I had never touched fondant before, never done any decorating,” she said. “I’ve learned it all from scratch. Ashley is a wonderful teacher.”
Malone especially likes the group of people Gann has brought together to make the cakes.
“I’ve met a wonderful cross-section of people from the community,” she said. “We’ve gotten to be like a family.”
That family feeling will be evident on Saturday, May 5, when Sweet Blessings will hold its second annual Fondant 5K at Keeneland. The event features a 5K and a one-mile cake walk. Sponsors include Blue Bell Creameries and Red Head Custom Cakes, which will provide cupcakes, because “you can’t have ice cream without having cake to go with it,” Gann said.
Gann feels blessed to be a blessing to others through Sweet Blessings.
“It’s really what I feel like I am supposed to be doing with my life right now,” she said.
For more information and to see a gallery of Sweet Blessings’ creations, or to register for the Fondant 5K, visit www.sweetblessingscakes.org.