Detroit (Michigan) Bake Sale $ Hacks by Ruth Paget
When I was elected president of the National Honor Society in inner-city Detroit (Michigan) for the 1981 – 1982 school year, Detroit was in a recession, which felt like a depression with auto plant closures due to the “invasion” of small, fuel-efficient Japanese cars that cut into sales of the American auto industry.
I think what clinched my election was my experience in running profitable bake sales to fund a freshman year trip to China for myself and 21 other young people from Detroit. I knew how to make hot cocoa in 10-gallon coffee makers and inexpensively make muffins and cupcakes from scratch.
I also said in my election speech that it was ok for working moms to purchase cupcakes and donate them to the bake sale. NHS members could also get community service hours working at the bake sale. The strategy was to price everything at 50 cents and make it easy to give change for singles, fives, tens, and twenties.
Each class in my high school had 900 students plus about 200 teachers. If you arrived at school early and set up everything, you had an audience of 3,800 people to sell to.
The bake sales sold out all hot cocoa and cupcakes. A bake sale could garner $400 to $450. The school security guards escorted me to the school treasurer’s office for money counting and deposit.
The National Honor Society used funds we raised to help charitable organizations in Detroit, who approached the principal and club sponsor via a written petition that was presented to the club for approval by vote.
I am still proud that in a recession Cass Tech High School was able to help UNICEF pay for a rainwater collection tank to be used in a school in Africa (Gela Jar Project). I wanted the club to have an international project and asked UNICEF to petition the school for project funding.
The true secret of bake sales I learned in high school was to make a quick, easy, and accurate transfer of goods. I have used this lesson for everything from cupcake sales to National Endowment for the Humanities grants.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
