A infant who has now not had the easiest start to existence is drawing near her first birthday. She lives in temporary lodging in Glasgow with her mother and siblings. The circle of relatives has little cash and no assist from any other relative inside the vicinity. They are being helped using the Glasgow Women’s Aid charity, which assists women and kids laid low with domestic abuse. Meanwhile, in another part of the town, a retired headteacher Davida Cook is in her kitchen. She is decorating a cake stimulated through the popular kid’s show In the Night Garden.
The infant and Davida will now not meet every other. However, Davida is about to place a big smile on the child’s face. She has volunteered to make her a free birthday cake. Davida volunteers for Free Cakes For Kids, an organization with unbiased businesses across the UK who all have one simple mission – to make personalized cakes for families who discover it difficult to offer a birthday cake for their own children. The bakers make and decorate each cake and pay for all of it themselves.
Back in Davida’s kitchen, the previous teacher displays why she spends her loose time to help children in this way. “Seeing the delight that my very own grandchildren get from birthday desserts, made mainly for them – I think they love to have it. “It makes the experience special, and I’m a tremendous believer in celebrations and birthdays. It is cute if you want to supply it to someone.”
Free Cakes for Kids turned into founded in 2008 by using Henriette Lundgren in Oxford. Since then, it has grown to approximately 60 businesses across the UK. In Scotland, as well as the Glasgow team, there are volunteers baking desserts in Edinburgh and Dumfriesshire. Davida is joined in her kitchen by Faiza Hansraj-Jackson, the Glasgow coordinator of Free Cakes for Kids.
Faiza is contacted with charities and establishments who inform her who the cake is for, how vintage the kid will be on their birthday, why the own family would struggle to provide a birthday cake themselves, and what the child likes. Frozen and Spiderman is popular picks.
The Glasgow volunteers make among 20 and 50 desserts a yr. “We paintings with companion businesses who normally work with deprived or susceptible youngsters,” stated Faiza. “Usually, the families aren’t in a position to provide a birthday cake themselves. “This could be for some of the distinct motives – they might be dwelling in a shelter, they are probably in temporary lodging, they might be fleeing some home violence or some other difficult situation.
They might be financially limited. “So what we do is we provide a birthday cake for this child that would not in any other case have a birthday cake.” In this situation, Faiza became contacted with Glasgow Women’s Aid to make a cake for the woman. The Glasgow institution has additionally made desserts for kids involved with HomeStart Glasgow North, Children 1st, Glasgow Association for Mental Health (GAMH), and Glasgow North West Carers team.
Faiza brought: “The girl’s family aren’t in a state of affairs in which they are certainly capable of having enough money a cake in the meanwhile. “They don’t really have a circle of relatives assists nearby either, so it is a nice aspect that we will do for her and her own family.
“What we do understand is that she likes In the Night Garden.” With the cake completed – whole with a fit for human consumption versions of Igglepiggle, Upsy Daisy, and Makka Pakka – Davida packs it right into a container and takes it to Glasgow Women’s Aid. They will supply it to the one-12 months-antique and her circle of relatives. It might be uncommon for the bakers ever to meet the kids they may be baking for.
For the charities and companies helped by Free Cakes for Kids, those acts of kindness could make a large distinction. Pauline Taylor is a circle of relatives useful resource employee with Glasgow Women’s Aid. Her job is to help children transition into a haven whilst fleeing their houses due to domestic abuse.
She said: Mostly, all the families come into refuge with restricted belongings. They have no cash or advantages in their call and are remoted and have no, or minimum, circle of relatives, support network. Birthdays can be a traumatic time, while there are most of these issues and no finances. They can not find the money for a special cake on top of the whole lot they’ve to buy.
Cakes like the ones that Free Cakes for Kids make might value an absolute fortune to buy within the community, something that could typically be so out of reach and inaccessible for the families we guide. “A birthday cake that isn’t always best unique searching, however tailor-made to the kid’s desires, is a perfect surprise and one that the women in our provider are honestly thankful for. Every time I gather one and provide it to the own family, they’re amazed at how kind and beneficiant human beings can be.”
