They Take The Cake in Boise, Idaho

This month we are collecting your stories about the good things Americans are doing to make their community a better place. Some of your contributions will become blog posts and the project will end with a story that weaves together submissions to make a story of Americans by Americans for Americans.

As Kathy Plaisance drapes blue fondant over a freshly baked chocolate cake, she explains that no child should have a cake-less birthday. Plaisance oversees Community Cakes, a group of 50 volunteer bakers who deliver homemade birthday cakes to people who might otherwise not have one — in veterans' homes, hospice centers and foster homes across southwest Idaho.

Plaisance tears up remembering the time she delivered a Superman cake to a boy in foster care.

"He was ecstatic. He had never had a cake like that before," she says. "Those are the ones that get you, and make you want to keep doing it."

Emilie Ritter Saunders is a reporter for StateImpact Idaho/Boise State Public Radio.

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