Dear Friends and Supporters,
Welcome to our new website!
Give a Cake has had a very busy spring and summer. We have had a great deal of growth in all aspects of the organization and we are very excited about the new opportunities that have presented themselves.
In May, Give a Cake welcomed a team of high school seniors from the MATCH Charter High School in Boston. “MATCH Alive” is an intensive 10 day internship requirement for graduating students, with the goal of introducing students to different career opportunities. During our internship, MATCH students helped with a variety of tasks and learned about social entrepreneurship through the lens of Give A Cake. One of the tasks was for students to research local non profits to try and establish a new potential partner. Students reported on potential partners that might align with Give A Cake, and after drafting an outreach email, we successfully connected with a new partner, “The Women’s Lunch Place”. The Women's Lunch Place is a day shelter that serves women in need in Boston. Their 40+ year commitment to serving the community is inspiring. The students baked, packaged and delivered over a 100 muffins and established a great relationship with this long standing organization.
The internship culminated in the creation of a pop up bakery held on the campus of the school. We were able to go into full baking production mode thanks to another new partner The Presentation School Foundation in Brighton MA. They generously offered their community kitchen and workspace, where our team set up shop for 3 days of baking and packaging. The team then transformed their high school cafeteria into a pop up bakery complete with signage, advertising and point of sale displays. It was incredible to watch the students work together to accomplish such great work in 10 short days on the doorstep of their graduation.
Based on the success of the 10 day internship, Give A Cake has established a semester-long initiative with the Entrepreneurship Club at MATCH to help students understand the importance of Social Impact ventures and shape their own entrepreneurial ideas. We are excited to support these students and give them access to volunteer opportunities in all aspects of our business.
In June, we participated in Newton Highlands Village Day! This was a great opportunity for us to showcase our amazing team of volunteers and engage with the community. We raised funds and through an onsite bake sale and donated the surplus goods to our great partner “The Freedge”! Our tent looked great and featured opportunities to donate and get Give a Cake merch! (more on that here) The day was complete with a visit from Mayor Fuller, who gave her support and took a great photo with the team!
The highlight of the summer was establishing a partnership with Harvard Health Lab Accelerator. Healthlab is a joint venture between Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard College’s Lemann Program on Creativity and Entrepreneurship. It was established to nurture startups in the social impact space. Usually reserved for Harvard students, we are piloting the program we designed for our MATCH students as a way to spur volunteerism in underserved youth communities. Working with Healthlab will give us great access to people, spaces and ideas that will elevate our internship and mentoring opportunities.
We are so grateful to all of our volunteers and supporters for helping us grow and extend our reach into communities in need. We are excited to continue to provide fresh baked goods, and we are optimistic that our internship programs will inspire students to consider social impact ventures as they continue their academic and professional careers.
Thanks for your support!
Julia, John & the Give A Cake Team