Local Bakery Partners with CASA to Give Birthday Cakes to Children
(Gulfport, MS, October 9, 2024) – While it may come as a surprise, not all children receive birthday cakes each year growing up. Twenty years ago, CASA’s executive director, Cynthia Chauvin asked a young person who spent the majority of her teenage years in foster care what might the CASA program do to better the lives of children in foster care. Without hesitation, she exclaimed, “Make sure they have birthday cakes and get to blow out candles!” Soon after, Candles of Hope was established. A project that ensured that all children served by the CASA program would not only get a cake and candles, but also allow them to select what type of cake and icing they would like. “Giving our kids choices, even those as simple as selecting their cake, allows them to have a voice,” Chauvin stated.
Within the last year, Chauvin’s CASA program that originated in Hancock County expanded to serve foster children in Harrison and Stone Counties. While the program’s primary goal remains recruiting, training, and supporting volunteers who serve as advocates for these innocent child victims, the birthday cake project certainly has remained near to Chauvin’s heart. In early October, CASA reached out to a local business to see what it might cost to purchase cakes for the children in Harrison & Stone Counties. Together, Danielle & Gordon White own and operate Quality Bakery in Wiggins & Gulfport, which has a 75-year history of service to the community.
Less than thirty minutes after that chance meeting, the Whites received a call from a family friend, Rachel McGill, who wanted to order a birthday cake for her late son Kaiden, who tragically passed away last year. During Danielle’s call with Rachel, she also mentioned that if she came across another child or family who couldn’t afford a cake that she would be willing to pay it forward in Kaiden’s honor.
Kaiden & his mother Rachel McGill
Danielle immediately thought of CASA and the children that they serve. Together, Danielle and Gordon committed with Rachel to start funding and supplying birthday cakes. With over 300 children in foster care in these two counties, this is big undertaking for a small bakery in tough economic times, but as Danielle simply stated, “God provides.”
On Wednesday, October 9th, what would have been Kaiden’s 18th birthday, his mother Rachel drove to the Gulfport Quality Bakery location to meet with bakery owners Danielle and Gordon White as well as Cynthia Chauvin & Lauren Saucier with CASA to create this project “Kaiden’s Candles of Hope.” In the coming week, the first birthday cakes will be ordered & made at Quality Bakery, and the CASA volunteers will be delivering the cakes to their children.
If you would like to donate to Kaiden’s Candles of Hope birthday cake project visit www.casasouthms.org/donate. For more information on volunteering or supporting CASA and the birthday cake project, please call 228.344.0419. Please visit Quality Bakery Gulfport or Quality Bakery Wiggins to learn more about this local business. To learn more about Kaiden’s story, please visit KRyderFoundation.com.