Bake Sale Madness!

My lack of blogging lately is definitely due to none other than the madness around me that has been Bake Sale! When I first signed up to head up the Bake Sale portion of Taylor's Finish Line Festival this past winter, I really had NO idea what I was saying yes to! But, when I got introduced to Cookies for Kids Cancer and all that was behind this incredible foundation, I was hooked and I hope to forever be a part of helping to raise money for pediatric cancer!

My now dear friend, Emily Fowler, who is Cookies' one and only employee, was such a great teacher, partner, and cheerleader for me as I learned how to put on a 25,000 item bake sale! And we did it! Throughout the process of baking, a Bake-a-thon, and the bake sale itself, we had around 750 volunteers! Bringing together so many different people in one community was definitely my favorite part about these last few months and it's exciting to think of how that will impact the future of raising more money through Cookies for Kids Cancer!

Taylor's Festival was a great success! Thousands of people came to take part in the celebration and the weather was amazing! Taylor was the star of the show in his own little fire suit and a lot of money was raised to support Make-a-Wish and Levine Children's Hospital.

Through the Bake Sale, we raised around $15,000 (still figuring out final total) and we are thrilled that we will be able to help another clinical trial take place (EVERY $ donated goes towards these trials!)! Thank you to everyone who volunteered in some way--I hope you were as blessed as I was to be a part of this! And thanks to everyone else in my life--for your patience with me as I didn't have time for much else in the last few months!

Enjoy a few pictures from the big day!

All of the circles on this banner are different businesses that sponsored our Bake Sale! The only thing we paid for was our tables and linens!

We raffled off a few Kitchen-Aid mixers!

We had a Pit Crew Cookie Eating Challenge! 8 teams of 5 guys each (actual Pit Crew guys!) competed against each other and we had local cheerleaders volunteer to cheer them on!

We had 2,500 cupcakes donated from a local cupcake shop-Polka Dot Bake Shop--AMAZING!

Our homemade craft paper banners were great! They represented the drivers of our driver cookie challenge and 4 local kids that have been diagnosed with cancer.

Tucker came to see what Mama was doing at the Bake Sale...

And finally, here is my awesome Bake Sale team! Lots of hours were poured into this effort between all of us and half of them I didn't know before this began, so I'm thankful for my new friends!

Amber, myself, Cindy, Nicole, Lesa, Emily, and Jennie...and there are more girls that aren't in the picture!