Loaves for CLOVES

Loaves for CLOVES started when my daughter was in 3rd grade. I had been wanting to find a way to raise awareness and money for CLOVES, to do something to help. At the time, we thought a bake sale at her elementary school would be the best way for us to reach the most people in our community. Loaves for CLOVES was catchy and we thought we could just focus on making one thing, bread. That first year my neighbor and I spent an entire day baking loaves of quick bread. At the end of the day we had about 50 loaves of coconut lime, chocolate zucchini and apple spice bread. I had purchased the ingredients myself and had no idea how many we would sell. We put a note in the weekly school newsletter and sent home a flyer about a week before. That first year we sold out in 10 minutes! It was a mob scene! Even though we didn’t have any bread left, people continued to leave donations and we raised almost $1000. The next year I knew I needed more loaves, but that I couldn’t make them all myself. I was able to get several donations of baked goods from local business and we still sold out in no time. This last May, my daughters last year in elementary school, we made over $1000 from the bake sale alone.

Along the way we met and became friends with a family in my daughters class. They run the Hayes Family Foundation and offered to match any amount that we earned from our Loaves for CLOVES sale. In the grand scheme of things, $2,000 isn’t much, but it’s $2,000 in support that wasn’t there before. Plus, just getting the word out to over 700 families about CLOVES is worth it. Who knows what kind of financial support that might bring in as well?!

This year, my daughter is in middle school with over 1500 students. We don’t think our little bake sale is going to be possible there, however we are working on a new way to get the word out and raise money for CLOVES Syndrome!

– Robynn Kuhns