Deals, Meals, Reels, Heels, & Spiels: Bake Me Home

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

...making the world a better place, one cookie at a time.

There is a local charity that I think is absolutely amazing. It was started by twin sisters in 2008, when they were just 7 years old. They wanted to help people who were living in shelters. Since they loved baking cookies with their mom, they came up with "Bake Me Home". You can read their story here.

Each family, when leaving the shelter, receives a cloth "Bake Me Home" bag that contains:

a $20 Kroger grocery store gift card
a jar of homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookie mix
mixing bowl
wooden spoon
baking sheet
pot holder
spatula
toothbrushes (family pack of 6) and a tube of toothpaste
a booklet of recipes donated by the Nutrition Council of Greater Cincinnati and put together by our friends at Mt. Washington Presbyterian Church

These girls are incredible. In addition to the original Tote Bag Program, they now have a Pantry Tote Program (which distributes bags to food pantries) and a Family Portrait Program (which gives family pictures to shelter families - photography services donated by local photographers). You can read about those programs here.

And there is the "Bake Me Back Home" program. A $30 donation sends 2 dozen cookies to a military member. "Our goal is that the taste of our homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies will help our military men and women feel like they are “back home,” even if it’s just for a moment." All packages can include a personal message and are cushioned with packages of homemade caramel corn.

You can find their oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe here. You can buy t-shirts and sweatshirts with the Bake Me Home logo here - 30% of the proceeds go back to Bake Me Home.

You can also volunteer and/or make a donation here. $5 buys enough brown sugar for 30 jars of cookie mix! And don't think that you have to live in the area in order to help - they also need people to: