A Virtual Bake Sale

She can’t cook. It’s humiliating to her. Baking powder does not rise in her kitchen. She has been getting looks since 1984. While she loves being the mother of a seven-year-old, when it comes to her baking, her child’s not forgiving. She won’t eat her mom’s cookies. So, today’s the day that this mom decided to call it quits. She swears that if she’s ever within 12 feet of another bake sale, she’s going to wrap up the best bakery’s worst looking cookies in some homemade Ziploc bags and pretend. Or, skip out altogether, toss some money at it so the school can raise money for charity, and let the other people bake.
But she didn’t feel good about it. I told her that she’s great at so many things, but no one can be great at everything, right? Her daughter, however, didn’t understand our logic – her daughter still wanted to show off mommy’s crappy cookies and raise money for charity like all of her friends. So, mom decided, even though she can’t cook, she can definitely whip it up for charity. She works as a high-powered attorney for a high-powered firm. She knows about clients, computers, codes, numbers, money, getting it, giving it, being in the office and being out of town. Don’t judge.
Always on her computer and pretty savvy at it, she set up an online fundraiser, It’s a ‘virtual bake sale’ and mom’s selling ‘internet cookies’ to raise money to help save the art programs at her daughter’s school. This is her first online fundraiser, and while it won’t smell good coming out of the oven, her ‘cookies’ will still pull in some money for the school. She said that it took her about twelve seconds to set up the online fundraiser. Using www.crowdrise.com, she created her own online fundraising page and wrote something fun and fast about her virtual bake sale / online fundraiser. She posted a photo of my amazing oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to draw attention, emailed all of her friends, family, and the other mom’s at the school to ask them to support her online fundraiser. Using the online donation tools to create her own kind of bake sale, she could be herself – the working, contributing, non-baking mom.
The mom’s loved it and the donations poured in! Her daughter and she raised more money through her online fundraiser than they did at the entire bake sale at the school this year! I think the school is considering more online fundraisers. And this time, she doesn’t mind if they call her – she can do it at work!