The baking group I inherited wasn't doing so well. We were meeting every week.. then every other.. I was still struggling to get people interested. Although we purposefully used the things we baked as snacks for a discussion group, the residents are offered a generous selection of desserts at lunch and dinner and their nurses would always give me an understandable glare for offering yet another sweet. Also, after everyone had eaten their fill, we would leave it for the employees and I felt bad about giving them the scraps.
"Volunteer Baking for the Employees" was born! I decided once a month to bake something the workers had requested. The residents would help bake but not help eat, which may mean less insulin shots that day. Before this began we had an activity to make the jar for putting suggestions in. It sits in a place of prominence and we have gotten many slips of hopeful paper so far.
A resident chose the winning slip for this month and it happened to be a redheaded nurse's carrot cake recipe. So we worked on it today although she warned us it would be labor intensive. There was the usual "can't find a 13X9 inch pan", "we only have margarine not butter" hiccups but our end result was pretty tasty according to the people who tried it. I knew this day was worth it when I pointed to the cake and explained to a disbelieving worker that it was for her, not for the residents, and to say thank you for all your hard work. The residents joked about not getting to have a slice for themselves but they were happy to know they were doing something for the people who do so much for them.
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