Gary Bowling's House of Art Fundraiser

Gary Bowling's House of Art at 500 Bland St. in Bluefield, WV is in trouble-- they may be forced to move due to low funding. It is a wonderful, enriching place for all ages to come and marvel at beautiful and unique works of art, and there you can see recycled art - trash turned into treasure. It is home to local artists, and everyone who enters is family. It is really the gem of the city, as it is an extremely economically depressed area with dilapidated buildings crumbling and businesses failing left and right.

Please buy a work of art or consider making a donation of any amount to help keep this light in the darkness alive! http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gary-Bowlings-House-of-Art/133225843375348

I wanted to do my part as soon as I heard they needed help. Fundraiser bake sales are my specialty! I love to help charities, as well as get the word out about vegan food, and I just plain love to cook. I donated all the ingredients as part of my contribution, so that 100% of what we earned could go to the cause. I also made everything $1 (waaaay underselling; vegan and organic ingredients are very expensive!) to help encourage people to come out and buy.

We didn't end up selling an awful lot, but totally sold out of the vegan sausage/cheese balls---those are always a surprise hit for non-believing omnivores!

And thanks to a VERY generous donation from a dedicated patron, we ended up making $255 in total. About a quarter of what they need monthly for rent - $1,000. A HUGE thank you to everyone that came out that night!

Relay for Life Vegan Bake Sale

On 4/16/2012 I had a vegan bake sale at Concord University in Athens to benefit Relay for Life. My best friend and my stepmom are both cancer survivors, so I wanted 100% of the proceeds to go to the American Cancer Society. We ended up making $144 total, including a donation my stepmom sent in! We had a really nice display and had a ton of fun - not to mention we sold out of almost everything! I kind of low-balled the prices because a. it's for charity and b. these are college kids we're talking about. I decided to change my Facebook page I made for my award-winning Vegan Baked goods (for public events & possibly small-scale private catering) and Eco-Friendly arts, and called it "Mark it with V":

http://www.facebook.com/MarkitwithV

There were orange rolls, Chocolate Chip Cookies, gluten free rice krispie treats, gluten free peanut butter cookies, friendship bread with golden raisins, mocha brownies, and vegan rainbow cupcakes. For the rainbow cupcakes, they came out more like tie-dyed. I usually just make them vanilla with vanilla/coconut buttercream frosting, but this time, I made half of them fruity by adding kool-aid powders in flavors corresponding to each of the colors! Can't decide on which are my favorite, though. There also seems to be a growing interest for gluten-free items, which I'm going to have to put more research and experimentation into to build my baked goods repertoire! The day was an absolute success.