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!

Taylor's Prayer

I look forward to telling you more about Taylor's Finish Line Festival and the incredible Cookies for Kids Cancer Bake Sale that I got to be a part of, but probably the sweetest moment of the weekend was Taylor's prayer before the All-Star race! He got the opportunity to pray for during the invocation in front of thousands of Nascar fans and even more millions of people on T.V. as he stood beside his "Coachie" and it was just simply amazing! I'm so proud of you Tay and it was so much fun to celebrate with you at your "carnibal"!

Finish Line Article in Today's Charlotte Observer!

This was a great article in the Charlotte Observer today on the the Gibbs family and Taylor's Finish Line Festival! Enjoy!

Thankful NASCAR family will stage festival - CharlotteObserver.com

Bake-a-Thon!

I have to admit, when I first learned that we could have 15,000 cookies baked, packaged, and ready to go in 24 hours, I didn't really believe it. But over the last several weeks as so many volunteers signed up (we even had to turn people away) and things have started coming together, I was getting so excited to help make it happen!

Johnson and Wales, the local culinary school downtown Charlotte, has amazingly gracious to us! They were willing to donate their beautiful kitchen space to us as well as bake all of our cookies last night before our Bake-a-Thon! We got started bright and early this morning and saw over 100 volunteers throughout the day! We packaged and boxed 15,000 cookies that we will sell at Taylor's Finish Line Festival next Sunday!

Fun group of women from my church that volunteered!

Beka and Ashley...you know you're cute when you still look good in a hair net :)

Melissa and Jackson stopped in...Jackson (Taylor's big brother) put gloves on and started bagging cookies!

I'm so proud of our team of friends! I seriously would trust anything in their hands :) I'm also so proud to be involved with Cookies for Kids Cancer and all that they are doing to raise money for pediatric cancer, $1 at a time!

This week will be craziness for me but things are all coming together for the big event! Can't wait to share more along the way!

Taylor's Finish Line Festival LIVE ONLINE AUCTION!

You are probably going to be seeing several posts from me during this last month leading up to Taylor's Finish Line Festival and the gigantic Cookies for Kids Cancer Bake Sale that I'm working on that's part of it! Click here to to go to the website and you will find the live auction on the bottom right side! Isn't this car awesome? They did it for the upcoming festival!

There is a huge online auction that went LIVE on the festival website on May 1. I wanted to invite you to go look and make a bid on something! All of the proceeds will be going towards Levine Children's Hospital and the Make-a-Wish Foundation! Below is a blurb Melissa wrote up about the auction for more detail...

Today is a big day for Taylor's Finish Line Festival! The auction that Grandma has headed up, goes live at noon! You can visit our website at www.finishlinefestival.com to click directly to the auction, which is being run through the NASCAR Foundation. There are some really incredible offerings, including a 14 person suite for a Redskin game, Yamaha motorcycles, a ski trip to Beaver Creek CO, baseballs autographed by Cal Ripken, a hockey stick signed by the entire Capitals team, an autographed copy of the cover of USA Today the morning after Dale Earnhardt won the Daytona 500, a basketball signed by Kobe Bryant, a Redskin helmet signed by Hall of Famers Darrell Green and Art Monk, an installed putting green, a leather jacket signed by Dale Earnhardt, Jr., a David Yurman necklace, a MAC tool chest, an autographed Richard Petty cowboy hat, a Sean Taylor autographed mini helmet, and lots of other sports memorabilia. These are some of the show-stoppers, but there are many other offerings. This would be a great way to support our efforts, particularly if you do not live locally in order to attend the festival. We can ship auction items anywhere, so don't be shy! And one more favor, would you consider passing on our website and specifically the auction information to your personal contacts? We love utilizing Facebook and blogs and Caringbridge sites if you'll have us! Thanks so much!

Good Pub for Good Things!

There is a great article in today's Charlotte Observer in the Carolina Living section! Great publicity for Taylor's Finish Line Festival and Cookies for Kids Cancer! Read the link below!

Personal battles lead to Cookies for Kids' Cancer - CharlotteObserver.com

Also, Cookies for Kids Cancer's biggest sponsor, GLAD (trash bags, etc.) just recently did a commercial for CFKC and it is on national television! AWESOME! Watch below and keep your eyes peeled for it on TV!