Why I Won't Be At the Next No Cookie Left Behind Bake Sale

There is a No Cookie Left Behind bake sale coming up Saturday, and I won't even be there.  I'm cutting the cord on this one, and couldn't be happier about it.  You see, since we started holding our bake sales in 2007, they've grown into a community event.  They are pretty much inseparable from Scoops and the surrounding neighborhood, and they just wouldn't be right without Tai watching over the operations with his smiley goodwill.  Our baked goods come from neighborhood businesses like Lark Cakeshop, Spork Foods, and Large Marge Sustainables, and with the advent of the raffle last year, we've even been able to bring local non-food businesses, like The Echo and Pal Cabrón, into the mix.  Ours is an East Side bake sale, held by eastsiders (which isn't to say all aren't welcome:  we open our arms and tables full of sweets to any and all who want to join us!).

So, when people started telling us during the Haiti bake sale that we ought to have a bake sale on the west side, or in Orange County, it just seemed strange to us.  We didn't want to.  Schlepping this operation to someone else's community just didn't jibe with what works so well for our bake sales.  It got me thinking though.

Our bake sale is designed to bring community together.  But it doesn't have to be my community.  Any community can have a bake sale, and it'll be a wonderful thing wherever it happens to be.  After this revalation, I was prepared to respond to those suggestions.  So, the next time someone told us to have a bake sale on the west side, we'd tell them, "No thanks, but you should have a bake sale on the west side."  And we'd mean it.

I love the idea of planting a seed for local events in communities all over.  It's been a goal for the last year or two:  to convince someone -- even just one person -- to hold a bake sale in their own neighborhood, then provide them the support and the knowledge we've gathered over the past few years, to help empower them to make it happen.  Miraculously, someone has taken me up on it.

A couple months ago, I'd never met Jen.  She sent me an email back in June of 2010, suggesting we do a bake sale on Abbott Kinney.  True to form, I didn't respond March of this year, a full nine months later.  Buzzing off our first bake sale meeting for the year, I checked the old bake sale email address and happened to see her message sitting there, and decided I'd try my new line on her.  A couple days later, an 8.9 earthquake hit the coast of Japan.  I got a reply from Jen: "Given the tragedy in Japan, I think we have to!"  Yes.

Meeting each other over coffee in Echo Park (Jen graciously made the big trek east) went swimmingly.  We found mutual connections, traded restaurant recommendations (Jen has since tried dreamy Robata Jinya, I have yet to make it to Red Medicine), commiserated over boys, and planned her bake sale! And this bake sale is going to be awesome.  It takes place at Tortoise General Store on Abbott Kinney, and Jen has rounded up baked goods from plenty of home bakers, plus a few local businesses (Gjelina and Platine Cookies -- nothing to scoff at) and one very un-local but lovely business:  Seattle's Theo Chocolate.  And of course, dear Lesley over at Chow Balla will be providing her now-legendary maple bacon popcorn. I'm so excited that Jen is making this happen.

So, please come by the bake sale on Saturday -- even better if you whip up a batch of cookies and bring it along.  You'll be supporting Japan and No Cookie Left Behind, but also you'll be supporting Jen.  We'll be back in June with our regularly scheduled east side bake sale, but in the meantime, she's taking the first step in creating a brand new hub of goodwill, good times, and deliciousness in her own community.  But she can't do it without the community itself. 

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Some links:
The No Abbott Kinney Cookie Left Behind Facebook event (Accept it!  Tell your friends!)
The No Cookie Left Behind webpage.
Our Facebook page.  (Like it!)
Our Twitter.  (Follow it!)