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Columbus Cake Celebrations puts sweet birthday smiles on kids' faces

Belinda M. Paschal, Columbus Dispatch
2 min read
Leo Caviness decorates a Spider-Man cake for Columbus Cake Celebrations, a volunteer-run nonprofit organization that provides birthday cakes for children in need.
Leo Caviness decorates a Spider-Man cake for Columbus Cake Celebrations, a volunteer-run nonprofit organization that provides birthday cakes for children in need.

In mid-2022, Emily Shaw read a Facebook post by a parent lamenting that they couldn’t afford to buy their child anything for his birthday. The post tugged at her heartstrings.

“I commented that I could buy the kid’s birthday cake,” the Columbus resident said. “The son was so grateful and appreciative.”

Where there was one, there must be other parents who could benefit from this kind of assistance, Shaw thought. So she began looking for volunteers to bake cakes for children in need.

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“I blasted all the different suburb and garage-sale groups looking for volunteers and got a good response,” she said.

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Two years, 342 volunteers and 2,300 cakes later, Columbus Cake Celebrations is going strong with Shaw as its founder and director.

Delivering to customers within a 30-mile radius of Columbus, the volunteers are mostly local, though one lives in Troy and another near Cleveland. Some are retired, many have families and full-time jobs. They bake at their own frequency — some do it every week, some every few months, Shaw said.

Wearing a shirt that says, "Every kid deserves a birthday cake," Barbara Braun Charles decorates cupcakes for the nonprofit Columbus Cake Celebrations, which makes birthday cakes for kids in need.
Wearing a shirt that says, "Every kid deserves a birthday cake," Barbara Braun Charles decorates cupcakes for the nonprofit Columbus Cake Celebrations, which makes birthday cakes for kids in need.

The nonprofit venture has taught Shaw and many other volunteers a new artistic skill. “I like baking, so I had done that before, but I’d never decorated previously. A lot of volunteers got into decorating from the group or had experience making cakes for their children,” she said.

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“Most of us are home bakers who do it for fun; only a few own businesses. Most have no professional experience. You get a lot of practice if you’re doing a lot of cakes.”

Eventually, local bakeries began to hear about Columbus Cake Celebrations and wanted to help. The group currently has partnerships with 10 bakeries that have committed to contributing at least 12 cakes per year.

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“Most of them heard about us through word of mouth, a Facebook post or saw us at a community event,” Shaw said. “We reached out to a couple, but most of them have found us.”

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Potential volunteers can apply at columbuscakecelebrations.com. Those requesting cakes can also fill out a form on the web

“We do it for anyone who feels they’re in need,” Shaw said. “There’s no income restrictions or anything like that. We do it for free.”

[email protected]

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Cake Celebrations bakes birthday cakes for children in need

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