Cookies for Kid’s Cancer

On Saturday, July 4th, the residents of Amagansett, NY will have the chance to celebrate our nation’s birthday with a special treat for a special cause. Cookies, brownies, cupcakes and more will be ready to devour - with all proceeds going to pediatric cancer research through Cookies for Kids’ Cancer.

When: 9am-1pm

Where: 44 Hedges Lane, Amagansett, NY

Hosted by: Some very Good Cookies

If you would like learn more or to help with this bake sale, please find us on Facebook and send us a message. Cookies has both a group (with more than 1000 members!) and a page where you can become a “fan” of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. Come along and be a Good Cookie, too!

1. September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness month. Cookies for Kids’ Cancer is hoping to have 50 bake sales (at least one per state) in the month of September to raise awareness. We hope, more than anything, you will put it on your calendar NOW to host a bake sale.

2. When you set a date for your bake sale, please REGISTER on our site. When you register your bake sale, we can help you by posting information on our blog, our Facebook page and on Twitter. We are thrilled to help promote your bake sale.

3. Daunted by the idea of a bake sale? Don’t go it alone. Just today I emailed with an amazing good cookie up in Pennsylvania who hosted a bake sale last year on Election Day. Now she’s working with a local restaurant to have a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer night. For every customer who comes in that day with a flyer about Cookies, the restaurant will donate 10% of the check to our organization. It’s that easy.

4. Speaking of how we can help you, please help us keep you up to speed on what’s happening here at Cookies by joining our Facebook page! We have a Facebook group with more than 950 members. Our hope now is to get all 950+ members to make the jump to the Facebook page, then grow and grow and grow from there.

5. We need your love, support and enthusiasm now more than ever. Liam Witt, the inspiration for his parents to create Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, began another round of chemotherapy this week as a result of a relapse of neuroblastoma. This news has been shocking to the Cookies team - beyond hard to believe and truly heart wrenching. The idea behind Cookies for Kids’ Cancer was to raise money to find the best treatments and cures for pediatric cancer. The cures cannot get here fast enough. The most important ways to support Cookies and Liam right now include: 1) prayers and positive energy and hope sent his way; 2) start planning now to host a bake sale in September or whenever works for you; 3) send us your stories and pictures about bake sales you’ve hosted; 4) purchase cookies through the website to help spread the word all over the world about helping kids like Liam who simply need a cure.

Thank you - for coming to the blog, for showing your support, for being a good cookie.

Quite literally, it was the mother of all bake sales. On Mother’s Day weekend in New York City, more than $20,000 was raised for Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. And while you can rest assured this was not your typical sidewalk bake sale - this event was the masterpiece of multiple groups, organizations and businesses in Manhattan, coming together to support pediatric cancer research - more than anything this enormous sale brought the spirit of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer’s mission to life for one lovely day in the spring.

A key organizer for the event was Chelsey Ingenito Fields, who coordinated the efforts of bakers, sponsors and volunteers to make the event a success. Afterward, she shared some tips with us for future bake sale organizers - no matter your goals because every dollar counts. Please take the time to read her ideas. Email us when you are ready to host your own bake sale!

Some Tips-(though you have the most AMAZING directions on the site already!!!)

I think we were successful because we had:

DELICIOUS and QUALITY baked goods,

AGGRESSIVE sellers,

GREAT location!

We set up right by a playground and in a MAIN thoroughfare of the park.  

We had people floating through other areas of the park with signs on yard sticks telling people that we were on the other side of the park.

We broke up some bags and offered tasters to passersbys and then lured them in for the sale.

We found out about local children events/sample sales and sent people over there with signs to lure them over and bags of cookies to sell directly there.

We created an event theme with activities to help bring people to the Sale.  Bake sale with family activities honoring mothers – Happy Mothers Day.

We had “Decorate Your Cookie” and “Decorate a Mother’s Day Card” tables.  

We sold raffle tickets too.  (All three of these were 1 for $3 and 2 for $5)  I wanted to also try to get kids tattoos and face painting, but couldn’t find the sponsors.  

We made large signs so there was less explaining necessary, more selling. We explained that ALL proceeds went to pediatric cancer research.  We used Kraft paper to cover the tables and ANYTHING else!

EVERYTHING got the brown cookies stickers.  I think this is super important too, for branding!  

We sold cookies for 2 for $3, 4 for $6, 6 for $8 and 12 for $15

Cupcakes were $3 and specialty items depended, but all higher than $3.

I assume we had over 500+bags of items.

We had baked good donators, which we called “good cookies” and added them to the flyers, signage, and stickers which we put onto the back of each bag. We also made stickers for people to write on or send through the computer for people to describe the types of cookies.  This helps a lot, especially with the volume of variety we had.

One thing I tried to do was get official sponsors of the event for signage and invites.  I just didn’t end up having the time to work it. This could have brought in large sums of $ prior to the event. (i.e: local cleaners looking for some local advertising or even larger corporations based locally to support the community)   We did have a couple of sponsors, which paid for the signage and miscellaneous.  

We could have used more vegan and gluten free items, but that might just be a geographical consideration. We were smack in the center of Greenwich Village.

For a BIG sale, I would recommend a coordinator with a team:

one person manages bakers, (and encourage community baking parties so everyone feels like they are involved)

one person manages selling,

one person manages raffles and sponsors

one person manages printing of signs, flyers, supplies and miscellaneous (someone with a graphics connection)

One person manages PR – we were lucky that a connection with a PR company gave us a pro-bono effort

STAY TUNED FOR PICTURES!

Are you in the Boston area? Do you know people in the Boston area? Do you ever dream of visiting Boston in the spring? We think you should. . .THIS SATURDAY! Here are the details. . .

Our sale is Saturday March 14^th at Bloomingdales, Chestnut Hill, MA Store(s) locations.  The sale will run the entire day from 10:00 am until 9:00 pm.  We will be in several locations in the stores.  There are two Bloomingdales in the mall, one at each end of the mall.  One side is the women’s store; the other side is Men’s and Home Store.

The “sale” is comprised of yummy baked goods, great cookbooks, and a raffle all in exchange for donations for cookiesforkidscancer.org. 

We hope you will help us spread the word!!

So we’re always trying to find simple, easy ways for all the supporters of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer to help in the fundraising effort. Because bake sales are awesome, and as much as we hope, hope, hope for one bake sale in every state, every week, we know some of you out there secretly wish for other ways to help raise money between hosting bake sales. So this week when David Frank of BUILT NY, INC emailed us to say he’d raised over $5,000 just by writing a letter to friends, we begged for details. . .he kindly obliged. Read on for his simple tips to raise some dough without baking a single cookie.

_____________________________________________________________________

CFKC: How did you raise $5,000 without baking a single cookie?

David Frank: Basically I wrote a personal introduction, blended it with information from one or more of your previous emails and some info from the website and then added instructions on where to send the checks. If you put together a standard email donation letter with all of this information and made it available online or by request, then it makes it really easy for interested parties to grab it and send it personally to their email database contacts.

CFKC: Do you have any tips on how to send out the email?

David Frank: Be sure to send this email to people by Blind Carbon Copying (BCC), so no one is personally put on the spot or feels their email address will now be added to some mass solicitation list.
CFKC: What do you think makes an effective fundraising letter?
David Frank:  In the letter there should be 1) a stated fundraising goal 2) a completion deadline and 3) a specific request to send the checks to the fundraiser rather than donating on the website. Leaving it up to them to donate on website offers no real accountability and people procrastinate and then don’t do it. I asked for checks to be sent to me so I could track my progress to my stated $ goal. And to make sure people were actually donating!CFKC: Did you just send the letter once?
David Frank: I sent my email three times, altering the intro slightly each time: Once as a first request; a second time as a reminder that the deadline is coming and if they want to participate they should mail checks asap, and finally a 3rd time as a last call, thanking the many people who have contributed already and exhorting anyone who is interested in donating but hasn’t gotten around to it, that the time is NOW to be included. Anyway, that’s how I did it. I think any more than 3 emails becomes a nuisance.

CFKC: Who should do an email fundraiser?
David Frank: This email fundraiser is great for the electronically and network inclined folks like me (and with time restrictions). It is faster and easier than setting up a bake sale, and I would guess it’s just as effective if not more so in raising money.————————————————————————————————————————

Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks. . .five thousand times THANKS, David! You are one good cookie!

On a cold day near the end of a seriously cold winter, Cookies for Kids’ Cancer got a much needed pick-me-up when these beautiful pictures from Alex Delhounge, a Good Cookie in St. Louis, arrived in our inbox. The bright pink tulips and pretty ribbons adorning a table of homemade cookies did more than simply represent a lovely bake sale held on Saturday, February 21st - they gave us HOPE for a season filled with warm weather, generous people and bake sales on every corner.

Alex and her friends hosted their bake sale from 11am-4pm at a local grocery store. With a goal of $500, they were beyond thrilled to exceed their goal by $22. . .and we were tickled pink as tulips. . .

We hope the pictures from Alex’s bake sale give you hope and inspire you to bake some cookies, set up a table and raise some money for pediatric cancer research. We need sunshine and warmth, flowers in bloom and birds chirping, and we especially need good cookies like Alex and her friends who take a little time to make a big difference in the world of kids’ cancer.

Recently, I received a request for information about Cookies for Kids’ Cancer from a colleague. Her office allows staff to wear jeans on Fridays, provided they pay $5 to wear them. The money raised from the jean-clad employees goes to a different charity each month. Even better, the company does a 50% match, giving each person the opportunity to raise $30 per month for charity ($20 out of pocket; $10 from the company). The colleague wanted to nominate Cookies as one of the monthly charities.

I haven’t heard yet if our cause of raising money to erase pediatric cancer has been selected by her office. Fingers and toes are crossed with hope. This great idea would be yet another way to spread the word and raise some money, too. Remember, every penny counts.

Share your ideas with us. . .we’ll help them grow.

Support Cookies for Kids’ Cancer this Valentine’s Day - order a box or more for all the loved ones on your list!

Do you know what Cookies for Kids’ Cancer is all about?

Well, yeah, we’re all about wiping pediatric cancer off the planet one cookie at a time.

But we’re also about bringing people TOGETHER for a common cause. Every time there is a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sale or event of any kind, our co-founders get pumped to hear about the experience of the people involved - the hard work, the funny moments, the new friendships formed. Larry and Gretchen want community and togetherness to be a key ingredient of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer because they believe in the power of people working as a team. 

That love of teamwork is leading Cookies to new partnerships with other organizations who want to join our mission to find cures for pediatric cancer - organizations like the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance. All fall, Cookies for Kids’ Cancer received support and encouragement from the members of the NYWCA - an organization of New York women who are passionate about food and wine while also working in the industry. These women are chefs and writers, instructors and professionals who all love and believe in the power of food. They also believe in Cookies for Kids’ Cancer.

Shortly after launching our Cookies website, NYWCA featured us in their weekly newsletter, encouraging members to become involved by hosting Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sales and events. Back in December, many members volunteered for the enormous bake-a-thon for the cookies we baked, packaged and shipped to families at Ronald McDonald Houses across the country. Then, as the year came to a close, Cookies learned the NYWCA  was planning to make a $2,500 donation to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. Humbled and honored, Cookies for Kids’ Cancer accepted the money to go toward research for pediatric cancer treatments.

The New York Women’s Culinary Alliance represents the power of partnership - not only because of a generous donation but because of the hands-on nature of NYWCA’s involvement. And as a team we are just getting started. NYWCA members are gearing up now for a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sale already in the works for early May.

Teamwork - that’s what we’re all about. At Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, we believe that if we all do a little, together we will do a lot to change the facts of pediatric cancer. We hope you join us!