Bake Sale!

I was the coordinator for a charity bake sale this past weekend. The bake sale was held in memory of our friend and coworker Joanne DiPaola. Joanne wasa teller at the bank where I work. She passed away in July 2006 after fighting her cancer for 16 months. She was the nicest person I ever met.

The money raised will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. We raised $1,521.

Friday the first day of the sale was Joanne's birthday. She would have been 61 years old. One of our customers bought a cake and donated it to us for our sale. She wanted the word remembering written on it. When she picked it up the word remembrance was written on it and it was spelled wrong. We decided instead of selling the cake, we would cut the cake and
each take a slice and remember Joanne on her birthday.

Here's the birthday cake in memory of Joanne.

We received a large amount of baked goods. We had 5 pies, coffee cakes, whoppie pies, apple crisps, all kinds of breads and coookies, espesso brownies, candy, jars of sweet pepper relish and rum mocha sauce.

We displayed the jars of sauce and relish in my wire container.

We even had a "decorating room". Any baked goods that needed packaging went straight to the decorating room to be bagged and embelished with ribbons and other decorative elements.

This is my cranberry apple crisp, all ready for a good home! The recipe is from Susan Branch's Autumn cookbook. Susan Branch is one of my favorites. I actually got to have afternoon

tea with her last Fall!

I always ask the bank to match funds from the bake sale. I'm not sure if they will but if they

do we will have raised over $10,000. in three years. Money to be used for free testing for women who can't afford it and for education about the disease. I think that is one of the best tributes we can give to our friend Joanne.