Because everyone deserves dessert...

The Mission of Cakes for Cause is to provide real work experience and skills to youth who are being served in public housing or who are in foster care or have aged out of foster care in Maryland.  Cakes for Cause will operate a commercial bakery/café, which provides jobs and training to these youth and empowers them to pursue a career in the hospitality and restaurant industry. 

Our Cause:
Cakes for Cause operates a social enterprise bakery/café (called Moxie and slated to open at the beginning of 2009) that provides job training and support to vulnerable youth in Frederick.  Our primary purpose is to give youth options for their future through vocational services.  Our youth will go through an intensive 6-month curriculum (for which they receive a monthly stipend) that teaches basic bakery skills (breakfast breads, sandwiches, pastries and cookies and party and occasion cakes) alongside restaurant service skills (counter and table service, hospitality, restaurant management) in an energetic and fast-paced café that serves the community at large.  More importantly though, our role is to help vulnerable youth internalize change—in their surroundings, through their employment opportunities, and within themselves. 

Our Children:
These youth are a vital part of our community. Although its total foster care population decreased between 2000 and 2004, The State of Maryland has one of the highest (in the top 15) percentages of youth who age out of the foster care system without a permanent family.  For these youth and other vulnerable youth in our community, it is this lack of connection to reliable adult role models that make their future more challenging.  Underemployment or unemployment, homelessness, substance abuse, and incarceration are often the outcomes for youth who age out of care without a permanent family or safety net.

Our Community:
Cakes for Cause services are a link in revitalizing the North Market Street community in Downtown Frederick.  We operate in collaboration with the Frederick City Housing Authority who has generously offered us retail space in their new Community Center.  Moxie will be the surrounding community’s coffeehouse, offering free wireless internet, local artists’ displays, and hand-crafted, artisanal pastries, cakes and desserts in fun and funky surroundings.