Rediscover Your Community
My fifth Women of Wonder mission was to rediscover my community through hosting a bake sale and donating all proceeds to a charity of my choice. When I first received the mission, I was excited, but also a bit apprehensive. It’s no secret that I like to bake, but I’ve never done it for money before. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to bake enough treats all by myself, and then I was worried that no one would come buy anything! I got to work right away and asked two friends to help out with the baking.
I had decided to host the bake sale within a week of receiving my mission. I couldn’t find a place to hold the bake sale (that I could afford), and I thought it would be too cold to hold it in a parking lot at a store, so I held it in my parent’s basement. Thankfully I decided to do it right away, because with the cold weather and the snow we’ve had the past week, I doubt anyone would have shown up.
I spent the entire week baking and making posters to put up around my parent’s neighbourhood. I invited all of my friends, and asked them to invite theirs. I have to admit that I probably should have done a better job with the advertising. Despite the signs I put up, only people I knew showed up. That’s perfectly fine with me though, we still made a decent amount of money!
Since my last mission involved shopping for and donating items to a charity in my community, I decided to go a little more international with my charity choice. The day that I had received my mission, I was at work when someone knocked on the door. It was someone representing Plan Canada, and he wanted me to adopt a child. I felt truly awful saying no. He showed me such beautiful pictures of the children, but I didn’t have any of the necessary stuff on me at work, so I asked him to give me the website so that I could look at it later. When I was trying to decide on a charity, I remembered the guy I had talked to earlier in the day and checked out the Plan Canada website. I stumbled upon the Food for Education Project in Sudan and was instantly hooked.
The project provides students with one healthy meal a day, and they encourage school attendance from girls by providing them an extra take home portion of food. I love the fact that they’re planting school gardens so that children can have access to vegetables, and there are community awareness campaigns on nutrition, healthy hygiene habits and the importance of educating girls. The best part? For ever dollar that I would donate, the World Food Programme and Plan Sudan would match that with six dollars! I was sold.
Despite the fact that this bake sale wasn’t affecting my immediate community, I realized that I was just as happy having my friends and family come together to support a greater cause. I’m always amazed at just how willing to give my friends and family are! Thanks to them, we raised $130, which means that once World Food Programme and Plan Sudan match my donations, we’ll have raised $780!
Below is a video I made during the bake sale. As you can see, we just enjoyed each other’s company for a few hours and had a whole bunch of laughs. Enjoy!
To see what the other Women of Wonder were up to, be sure to check out the WonderBra facebook page.
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