OxFizz is really pleased to support a new charity, Free Cakes for Kids UK, recently set up by Jette Lundgren. Jette has been one of our star volunteer interviewers at Career Interview Coaching, where she has also been our Recruitment & Training Consultant.

Modelled on a successful American charity, Free Cakes for Kids UK is a non-profit service to families in Oxford who find it difficult to provide a birthday cake for their child. The cakes are baked by volunteers from the local community.

It’s a simple, low-cost idea, and one with real community benefits - for children, parents and families, as well as the volunteers who get to use their time and skills in a different and accessible way.

Jette is always interested to hear from anyone who can support the project. Perhaps you know a family who can benefit from the service, whose child’s birthday is coming up and for whom baking a cake would be difficult. Or if you know anyone interested in becoming a volunteer baker or anyone who can help support with ingredients or kitchens do get in touch with her: oxford@freecakesforkids.org.uk or 01865 242207.

See below for a recent article for Leys News on Free Cakes for Kids.

OxFizz would like to wish her the very best for her project.

Charity Baking at the Dragon School
It’s Monday morning and a group of eleven ladies from the Oxford University Newcomers’ Club gather in front of the Dragon School Lodge on Bardwell Road in North Oxford. In their bags and backpacks: flour and chocolate, strawberries and vanilla essence and an apron each. Their plan for the morning: to bake lots of cupcakes, brownies and shortbread for the Leys Youth Programme activity groups.

So the baking starts. “We scheduled the strawberry cupcakes to be baked first because they take a long time to cool down and be decorated,” explains Henriette Lundgren who also runs the Free Cakes for Kids project in Oxford. While a group of bakers equip themselves with mixing bowls and hand mixers to prepare the delicate cupcake dough (with fresh strawberry puree - yummie!), the other half explores what it takes to knead, roll and cut shortbread biscuits.

Coming from different national and cultural backgrounds and with different levels of baking experience, everyone is really enthusiastic about the baking morning. For some of the ladies, baking cakes does not form part of their food tradition but the ladies particularly enjoyed making these cakes for charity.

As noon approaches, an impressive range of 70 strawberry cupcakes, 60 shortbread biscuits and 45 chocolate brownie bars are cooling on the baking trays.

We finish just in time for Richard Colbrook, leader of the Leys Youth Programme who organises activity groups for children from Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys, to come and pick up the cakes. “Wow! So many cakes? The cheerleaders will love them!” We later received a thank you letter from Richard in which he describes how much the children enjoyed the cakes: “They couldn’t get over the taste of the cakes: how nice they were compared to the bought stuff they’d normally eat. You made a huge impression and your kindness will be remembered for a long time.”

Also Danny Gill, Director of Social Impact at the Dragon School, seems very pleased with this successful charity baking event. “When do you come back next term?” he asks us while we switch off the lights and close the kitchen door.

Article for Leys News / August Issue. Written by Henriette Lundgren. Pictures by G.F. Sturt