Bake Sale Postmortem

Whew. There’s a lot more to a bake sale than whipping up a batch of cookies.

Our best salesman of the day.

I just managed my first bake sale on Saturday and even though there were times I was overwhelmed and exhausted, I would do it all over again.

I’d do it again for the cause — my kids and so many others could really use a real playground at their school. (A school in 2010 without grass? How 1950s.)

And I’d do it again to work with so many great people. The 30-plus bakers were truly talented. Several were not only masters in the kitchen, they were creative with their packaging for display:

Pumpkin swirl brownies tied with twine and round metal-edged tags, piled high in a large basket. Gluten-free cookies and breads dolled up with blue and white polka dot ribbon. And dozens of monster chocolate chip cookies, individually wrapped and tied with ribbon, then marked with a big red $1 bullseye sticker in the center.

I made chocolate brownies in ghost-shaped tins and made eyes out of M&Ms and mouths out of candy corn. But my packaging skills, I have learned, are sorely lacking. Thankfully another mom printed out cute Irving Schoolyard Project labels, otherwise my cookies would have looked even more sad by comparison to the ones dressed in stickers, sprinkles and ribbon.

And after seeing how the Women’s Guild managed their display, with tiered pie racks and cupcake stands, I know exactly what I’d do differently next time. They were the other bake sale at the market Saturday and they had an absolutely top notch presentation, complete with table clothes and volunteers with matching t-shirts. 

We were all blessed with an unseasonably warm and sunny day, but an oddly sluggish start to the market (even the farmers noticed – some blamed the holiday weekend).

Customer finding herself in the Schoolyard Project photo.

Thankfully, we had an Irving 4th grader at the table during our slow period to not only draw every grandmother to the table, but to hit home the reason we were there. He talked, from personal, painful experience, about the need for softer landings on the playground.

His 2nd grader sister was just as sales savvy, at some points, asking mostly choosy children, “Can I have your money now?”

I wasn’t sure we’d keep up sales after their shift ended. But things picked up for us and the farmers around 11, just when the market usually starts to slow down. At that point, I was sure we would sell out before the market closed at 1.

We came pretty close. We didn’t start to discount until about 12:30 when we were down to just a couple dozen items.

At the very end, all we had left were a few slices of cake and broken cookies. Our best customers were Irving families, alumni, neighbors and even the former school nurse…who could easily testify as to the need for a better, safer play space for our kids.

We ended up raising about $950 for the Schoolyard Project. That was a little shy of my unofficial goal.

At least I have a number to beat next time. And were now $950 closer to some softer landings at Irving.