Free Cakes For Kids believes that every child deserves a birthday cake. To make that happen, the non-profit organisation matches families who find it difficult to provide a birthday cake for their child with volunteer bakers from their community. The service is free, friendly and confidential.

The volunteer bakers go to great lengths to bake a cake that features the child’s favourite theme or style. Recent highlights include a rocket-shaped chocolate cake, a Bob-the-Builder cake with tools and sugarcraft, a pink princess cake, or the ever-popular football theme. When family and baker get in touch, they also arrange a day and time for pick-up.

The project was the inspiration of Henriette Lundgren, who felt that her love of baking could be a useful tool to help under-privileged families. “Many families want to do something special for their children, but find the prices at high street bakers prohibitive,” she says. “So we jump in and make sure that every child can blow out the candles on their very own cake.”

Henriette started Free Cakes For Kids UK in 2008 after reading about Toni Poulos, the founder of Free Cakes For Kids in America. Since then, Henriette has set up Free Cakes for Kids in Oxford and organised a series of charity events, including master classes for bakers who want to support Free Cakes For Kids.

Over the past 12 months, she has managed to enlist a group of people who share her love of baking .

One of them is Sian in Iffley, who started making cakes with her mum in her hometown of Newcastle when she was a toddler. “I remember cracking my first egg and missing the bowl completely!” Sian laughs. She is now a mum herself and grateful for any excuse to bake a cake. “And it’s better for my health if I give them away!” she adds.

Ally, another long-time volunteer, runs her own business working with charities in Oxford, and bakes for the group in her spare time. To find out where birthday cakes are needed the most, Free Cakes For Kids is working closely with local organisations like the Children’s Centres in Rose Hill and Barton, youth groups in Blackbird Leys, the Citizens’ Advice Bureaux and the Community Emergency Foodbank in Hollow Way. The organisation is now thinking about how the idea can be expanded.

While volunteers usually buy their own ingredients, Free Cakes For Kids is grateful for any donations and support, large or small. If you would like to start a group in your own neighbourhood, or find out whether someone is already baking near you, visit their website at www.freecakesforkids.org.uk or email Henriette at ford@freecakesforkids.org.uk