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Giving Back Through Baking Birthday Cakes

Montclair High School students
The Human Needs Food Pantry

Can high schoolers make a difference in their community by baking a cake?  A group of Montclair High School students is trying to do just that.

It’s Friday afternoon and while other students are fleeing Montclair High School, about fifteen young women have assembled in a second floor classroom with a cake and brownies. But they’re not having a party.

"I’m Lexi Greenbaum, I’m Joni Mae de los Santos, Biata Kaz"

And their advisor.

"Jeffrey Friedman, I am an English teacher and also the baking club advisor"

They donate a lot of money to charity, but they also wanted to donate their baked goods. 

Lexi Greenbaum: With all the leftovers of our bake sales, we will give to the Human Needs Food Pantry, and if they’re not open that day, we give it to the Salvation Army, which is downtown in Montclair.
Jeffrey Friedman: "And then one day they said, you know what, we think we would like to make cakes for those people who really can’t afford to have a cake, because cakes can be really expensive." "You know, these people, sometimes some of them are struggling to buy food for the week so birthday cakes sometimes are a little bit beyond their means."

That’s Mike Bruno, the director at the Human Needs Food Pantry. The Pantry helps give food to more than 2,000 adults and more than 1,000 children from 1,400 households. They serve 14 towns throughout Essex County.  

"I usually have somebody in tears in this office at least once a week that they can’t believe they found themselves in this spot and when I speak about this, I always tell people, every one of us is one job downsizing, one major medical issue away from being a client here. It’s pervasive, it’s terrible."

And people still have birthdays.  

"People still have holidays, they still have birthdays, they still want to celebrate."

Montclair High School students
Credit The Human Needs Food Pantry
A special soccer cake baked by the students

So the Baking for Change Club wants to help them celebrate with a custom made cake. 

Joni Mae de los Santos: A parent or a guardian or whoever orders a cake for the kid and they just write down, oh, what’s your favorite color, what are your interests, what are your hobbies,
Biata Kaz: "Cake flavor"
Joni Mae de los Santos: "Yeah, cake flavor, color,"
Lexi Greenbaum: "Any details they want"
Joni Mae de los Santos: "Any special additions to the cake. We try to, like, let the kids really customize their cakes so they have a really nice cake."
Biata Kaz: "We just want to make kids happy and have a really nice birthday. That’s what the goal of the program is. For us, it’s hard to imagine a birthday without a birthday cake."

And Mike Bruno at the Pantry is excited about it.  

"I thought it was such a great, innovative idea. I mean, for them to connect with us is so randomly bizarre. For them to be over there in a baking club and think about, well, we could bake cakes for poor people. I thought that was just brilliant. That touched me tremendously that these young kids decided to come and help us. It has a real impact. When I tell you the first cake that we gave, that lady was so excited to see that cake for her child that she would have paid a lot of money for in a routine bakery, it meant a lot."

(phone ringing)

Maura: "Hola, soy Maura."

Maura received a cake last month for her 12-year-old son’s birthday. He’s a big fan of the Barcelona soccer team, so the cake was decorated like a soccer ball with the team’s logo.  

Maura: "Es algo diferente fuera de algo adorno porque se las pastelerías hacen flores o les ponen unos adornitos de plástico, pero esto fue todo con excelencia. Fue hecho con a mano y fueramente. Muy lindo, muy agradecida por todo."

Translation: It's different than other decorations because at the bakeries, they make flowers or put some plastic decorations, but this was all done with excellence. It was made by hand and strongly. It’s so cute, and I’m very grateful for everything.  

The Human Needs Food Pantry shared a picture of Maura’s son’s cake on Facebook, and a hundred followers liked or commented support.  

Bruno: "I think everyone looks at it for what it is: it’s a group of young people getting together to do something really nice for a bunch of people in need. Who could have concerns about that?"

Bruno says that as long as students want to continue the collaboration, he will gladly advertise the opportunity to his clients. And the club, which has 98 members in its Facebook group, is excited to continue the program.  

Lexi Greenbaum: "Yeah, yeah, we just want, as long as the process is working, we just want it to work. We’re happy that people who are receiving the cakes are happy and as long as that keeps running. It’s, like, a really rewarding thing, like we’re all so busy and we all have really hectic schedules and this is our way of giving back to the community."