How to have a Bakesale

http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes

     Have you ever wanted to have bake sale, but you didn't know where to start?  I love to bake and last summer I did my first bakesale for an animal rescue.  I found out that it is a lot of work, but it's not too hard. I also found out that it is a lot of fun!

       First you need to decide on an organization that you would like to do the bake sale for.  I picked a no-kill volunteer animal shelter in the community.  Second I would ask your friends and family if they would be interested in helping.  The more hands you have the faster it will go and the more you will be able to make.  Plus, who doesn't love to bake with family and friends, its a blast! 

        After you have your baking team set up you should decide on the place and date of your event. The one that I did was at the farmers market and the shelter already had a booth so I didn't have to worry about this part.  If you don't know where to have the sale maybe call some local stores to see if they would let you have it outside of the store.  You could also see if you could sell at a sports event.

     Next you need to decide on what you want to bake.  There are a lot of things to choose from.  I baked chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter blossoms, frosted cut out sugar cookies, and m+m cookies.  Cookies are a great thing to bake because you can make them in advance and freeze them until the day of the sale.  You could also bake cupcakes, bars, brownies, puppy chow, and anything else you can think of.  If you make something that you need to frost you should wait until the day before to frost, because frosting can get gritty when frozen for too long. Try to use bright colors and decorations on the goodies to catch peoples eyes.  If possible maybe even go with a theme.  Since my bakesale was for an animal shelter I made bone, paw-print, dog, and dog house shaped cut out cookies. 

    After you have everything baked you need to package them.  You can buy "fancier" packaging at a craft store, but ziploc baggies work just fine too.  To decorate them even more you can tie the bags off with ribbon; I used pawprint ribbon.   If your setting up your own table you can make signs and little cards saying what each goody is and how much it costs.  I put 2 cookies in each bag and we priced them from 50 cents to a dollar.

    I hope this helps get you started and remember to have fun and that you can change the world one cookie at a time!