"Let them eat cake."

Sweet Blessings is a non-profit organization in Kentucky that bakes customized birthday cakes for children living in poverty, or suffering with life-threatening illness, or with special needs. It receives cake referrals from social service providers, schools and churches. Volunteers then bake and decorate a cake specifically designed for each child.

One volunteer baker explains that many of the children they serve have never before had a birthday cake, because their families could not afford one. Sometimes Sweet Blessings gives a boy a girl their first cake, and sometimes, if the child is in hospice, they bake and decorate a child's last cake. In every case, the aim is to help the child feel loved and special. Last year, at the annual Sweet Blessings Bake-A-Thon, volunteers baked 154 cakes in 15 hours. During all of 2018, the non-profit made, decorated and delivered 2,600 cakes in Central Kentucky. The annual total has grown every year since Sweet Blessings began baking in 2011.