Volunteers’ sweet moments for Kiwis
Kiwi charity, Good Bitches Baking, are ‘saving the world, one cake at a time’, they tell Sharon Stephenson.
When Lily Houghton’s twin daughters were delivered 10 weeks early – and placed in incubators where she couldn’t touch them – the only bright spot in her life was the delicious treats she enjoyed once a week.
‘‘Sitting next to your babies for 12 hours a day, unable to take them home, was horrible,’’ says the Auckland mother-of-three.
‘‘But every Monday, all these goodies would be dropped off at the hospital. Not only was it an opportunity to meet with other mothers going through a similar thing, it was also so nice to eat food made with love.’’
Houghton’s moments of happiness came courtesy of Good Bitches Baking (GBB), a network of volunteers around New Zealand, who create sweet treats for those in need, from homeless shelters and hospital wards to Rape Crisis support and hospices. The charity has recently celebrated its fifth birthday.
‘‘It’s about giving someone a moment of kindness on a crappy day, a tiny reminder that everything isn’t totally terrible,’’ says Nic Murray, who started GBB with Marie Fitzpatrick in 2014.
It certainly worked for Houghton, who was so taken with the gesture that a year later, when her daughters were doing well, she started volunteering with her local North Shore, Auckland, GBB branch.
When Stuff caught up with her, Houghton was whipping up a batch of peanut miso cookies and a salted caramel banana cheesecake for the local hospital.
‘‘I love the idea of helping someone who’s having a tough time, the way someone did for me.’’
Having recently returned to her job as a teacher,
Houghton says she’s grateful for the flexible GBB schedule.
‘‘You choose what you make and when you make it. Volunteers buy all the ingredients, but don’t have to be great bakers, it’s the thought that counts.’’
Bakers also don’t have to distribute the goodies: volunteer drivers pick them up and deliver them to recipients.
Earlier this year, Murray and Fitzpatrick were awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for their work in establishing and running GBB, which now boasts more than 2100 volunteers in 25 chapters from Invercargill to Auckland, and supports more than 170 charities. Murray estimates that translates to a whopping 700,000 ‘‘moments of kindness’’.
Other impressive numbers: 9000 packets of butter, 70,000 eggs, 4500kg of sugar and 7000kg of flour. That’s how much Murray estimates volunteers have transformed into baked treats for their fellow Kiwis over the past five years.
That’s not bad for a charity that started with too many drinks.
‘‘One night, Marie and I were talking about how the world was getting grim and people were having a rough time,’’ says Murray.
‘‘We’d had a few drinks by then so decided to create a Facebook page asking if anyone would like to bake a cake or biscuits to be delivered to the local Women’s Refuge, neo-natal trust or Ronald McDonald House, all organisations we have personal connections to’’.
Thinking they’d get a few volunteers, the pair