Potato Nation

Queen of the Cupcake – a Pembertonian heads to the kitchen to help sweeten a friend’s fundraiser

Posted by Lisa Richardson on August 26, 2011 · 1 Comment 

What was the Cupcake Project about?
A colleague of mine is running 80kms from Squamish to Whistler all on his own and I wanted to help with his fundraising efforts as it is a charity event in aid of the research and treatment of kids cancer.

So, what is your cupcake-making expertise?
I enjoy baking and seem to have a knack for it! I have made cupcakes for work colleagues on Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day etc as a thank you and mini-morale booster and they always seem to go down well!

What motivated you to step up and help Ashley fundraise in this way? Couldn’t you have just given him $20 and been done with it?
I could have just given $20 and at the same time Ashley could have just run 20kms as part of a team but I thought by way of selling the cupcakes we could make a bit more money and have more people involved in the fundraising. They get to have a treat whilst giving to a very worthwhile charity without even realizing!

How many cupcakes did you think you’d make over the month of August?
Based on the first weeks sales I thought I would be making in excess of 150 cupcakes. I thought it would be fantastic to break the $500.00 raised mark which would mean making and selling 167 minimum. (In the end, Zoe baked 205 cupcakes and raised $615 for the cause.)

What kind of specialty equipment does a person need to make cupcakes?
Cupcakes are pretty simple so a muffin pan and icing bag are the basics required. Ideally a food mixer would be great but I don’t have one of those as yet so they are all being lovingly made by hand.

Was this your first foray into full-scale cupcake production? What about into charity/fundraising?
This will definitely be the most cupcakes I have made to be sold. I only make smaller batches when giving them away! However, this isn’t my first fundraising efforts. Back in the UK my husband, Gary, and I promoted, organized and held 3 dryslope snowboard competitions to raise money for the British Heart Foundation following the premature death of my dad. In total we managed to raise just over 3000GBP.

How long have you been in Pemberton?
We moved to Pemberton a little over 3 years ago having moved to Canada in November 2007.

Why Pemberton?
We loved the small town community feel of the village, which is the complete opposite of where we were living in the UK. And you can’t beat the beautiful surroundings.

You’ve become a kind of unofficial Pemberton ambassador for people thinking about relocating here. Can you tell us about that?
When we decided to emigrate to Canada from the UK we started up an online blog to keep our friends and family updated about how things were going. That blog has continued since we made the move and has somehow popped up on other people’s radar! We have been in touch with 3 or 4 other couples/families, and met 2 couples in person, who are also thinking of making the move to this particular area and have been able to help with their questions and give our thoughts of what it’s like to live here. It’s strange to think that something which started out as being information for friends and family has been helpful to others, but great too!

You’ve also been the firepower between the Pemberton page on facebook. What motivated that, and what it’s all about?
The old Pemberton Facebook page wasn’t being updated and there now seems no way to do that since the changes made to Facebook, so I decided to create a new page which is meant to provide pertinent Village information and let people know of events happening in Pemberton all on one page.

It is quite often the case that an event is only advertised in the week or so prior to it actually happening which means that you might not be able to attend due to other commitments so I wanted to try and get things out there further in advance and would encourage event organizers to add their own event whenever possible.

Anyone can post on the page, providing they are a member of the Pemberton group, and the more they do this the more information that is out there.