Fundraising Attempt Number 1

I recently tested my hand at a bake sale, which was my first fundraising attempt to go to South Africa. It was our school's homecoming game (which I found out about 2 days before the game), so I decided I was going to make cupcakes with our school's colors on them and attempt to sell them. I've never done a bake sale before. I had no idea how many cupcakes to make or how to go about selling them, but that wasn't going to stop me.

I spent about 4 and a half hours baking and decorating cupcakes, both regular sized ones and minis, because they're so cute! Jenn made me some kick-ass homemade icing, and I picked up a Halloween decorating kit, since the colors so nicely match our school colors. And for the record, the homemade icing was waaaay better than the Betty Crocker icing I picked up. It started out looking nice and then completely melted off the cupcakes before I even got outside, and yes, the cupcakes were cool when I decorated them. It left me with an unfortunate number of cupcakes that looked too bad to sell, but my husband was more than happy to eat them so I wouldn't have to be reminded of my icing blunder.


It was harder than I thought. It was harder baking and decorating then I thought, and harder to sell them than I thought. By the end I was tired, thirsty, hungry, sweaty, and ready to go home. But it was also easier, because a lot of people were much more generous than I was expecting. My trooper of a husband walked around the school campus with me for nearly 3 hours to sell these cupcakes. We had a mobile bake sale, which people seemed to really like. There were a lot of supportive people out there who were willing to by my cupcakes that were melting in the Oklahoma heat, and there were a surprising number of people who didn't want a cupcake but were willing to donate to me anyway. And that really, honestly touched me. I think that's one of the main things I like about Oklahoma. You don't really see that in Philly too much.

We managed to sell every cupcake that was presentable, as well as a couple that weren't (in my opinion, at least). I would call that a success. Granted, it wasn't really a huge amount of money considering they were just cupcakes for 50 cents or a dollar and taking into account the money I had to spend to make them, but I was really proud of myself for pulling it off. And I learned an important lesson, which was yes, people will help you out and buy your cupcakes. So now we're going to be doing bake sales at our other fundraisers, the next of which is a pet photoshoot on November 17. Wish us luck, and if you're in the Norman area, bring your pets out and help support us!