By Krishna Gomatam

Volunteering has always had a large presence in Vicki Pope’s life. Her parents were avid volunteers and encouraged Vicki to be the same in her youth. Even during her 22-year tenure working full-time at Intel, she found ways to volunteer outside of her job, including at her kids’ schools. Vicki is no stranger to volunteering, and she finds any volunteer work she does to be very rewarding, regardless of the task itself. But if you ask Vicki now, she would undoubtedly tell you that some of the most joyful experiences she has had have been the countless hours she and her friend have spent volunteering for Cake4Kids.

Cake4Kids is a nationwide non-profit that partners with agencies to bake and deliver free, custom birthday cakes to at-risk and underserved youth (ages 1-24) across the country. Founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010 by the late Libby Gruender, the organization started as a local grassroots effort but has since expanded to have chapters in 20 major cities across the United States.

The process has become very streamlined over the years as Cake4Kids has scaled and grown across the nation. The partner agencies, such as foster care centers, low-income housing projects, and other social service organizations, reach out to Cake4Kids requesting a cake for a child’s birthday. They provide the name of the kid, the day of the birthday, and some specific details on the child’s interests and passions. The request goes into Cake4Kids internal queue, where it gets vetted by the operations team. Then, it becomes visible to volunteer bakers in the Cake4Kids network, who can select a request that they want to fulfill. The baker then bakes the cake according to the information provided, and delivers it to the agency on the requested day.

Julie Eades has been deeply involved with the organization since 2013, when she became one of the first staff members at Cake4Kids. Julie spent some years as the executive director of the organization, and now serves as the President of the Board of Directors, overseeing operations but not taking a staff salary. Early on, she would go out in the field and visit some of the agencies where many underserved kids were living, and she saw firsthand the joy that these kids would get from simple acts of kindness and acknowledgement.

“Seeing those kids light up from small acts of kindness made me determined to continue to help underprivileged youth,” says Eades. “It’s become the passion of a lifetime for me – the joy of helping people less fortunate and helping raise the self esteem of these kids.”

Cake4Kids has obviously had intangible impacts on the lives of young children, who receive a lovely homemade, personalized birthday cake when they may not have been expecting anything at all on their special day. But as Eades and Pope can both attest to, the impact that this organization has had on its volunteers and staff cannot be ignored.

“It’s extremely therapeutic for our volunteers,” Eades says when asked about volunteer stories. “We have volunteers who find us during tough times in their lives, and [baking cakes for these kids] helps them find some peace.”

Eades mentions that they’ve had many individuals over the years that have come to Cake4Kids after difficult experiences in their own lives. She has met people that joined as volunteers after the loss of a loved one or child and some who have suffered abusive relationships and some who had experienced the foster care system themselves. These volunteers go on to use the selfless and wholesome acts of baking for underserved youth as a form of therapy, which speaks volumes to the power of this organization, and of doing good deeds in general.

Pope and her friend have been baking at least one cake per month ever since they began volunteering with Cake4Kids about 13 years ago. As two of the longest standing volunteers with the organization, their consistency is a true testament to how incredibly rewarding volunteering can be when the organization and the mission align with one’s own values.

“It’s just been such a joy,” Pope says about baking cakes with her friend for so long. “We know that these kids might not get a birthday cake at all if we don’t take the time to bake one for them, and that feeling is enough to keep us going.”

So what is it about going out of our way to help other people that makes us feel so great? Baking a cake is no easy 2-minute task. What motivates someone to take the time to engage in this act of selfless service over and over again, with no tangible reward? The psychology behind doing good and volunteering is quite amazing, and provides us an explanation as to why anyone would continue to volunteer.

First of all, consider two types of motivation that people can have – extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. According to research done by Stanford, the motivations behind people’s actions, and whether they are self-oriented or not, often have a massive impact on how they perceive the benefits of their actions. Extrinsic motivation refers to being motivated by some sort of external factor or reward, such as money, fame, recognition, or favors. For example, someone who doesn’t love their job, but still gets up every morning to go to work, may be extrinsically motivated to do so by the money that they are getting paid for their work. Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, refers to being motivated by our internal values and passion. When one is intrinsically motivated to perform an action or task, they do it for the sake of enjoying that action or task. In the case of volunteering, that can refer to both the actual task itself (i.e. baking cakes) as well as the act of helping others.

Volunteers like Vicki Pope enjoy baking cakes, but their true motivation comes from their intrinsic value of selflessness and a desire to help others and do good. When motivation is intrinsic, a volunteer is far more likely to stick with the work, because their desire to volunteer does not hinge on the presence or absence of any extrinsic reward.

“When our volunteers bake and deliver their cakes for kids, they never actually see the kid,” mentions Eades. She believes that since the volunteers never get that direct satisfaction of seeing the kid’s reaction and receiving an in-person “thank you,” they are not being motivated by that extrinsic validation, making this a truly selfless act.

Volunteering also serves as a vehicle for connecting people with similar values, which can help individuals find purpose, be social, and help society. The ability to join together with a like-minded yet diverse group of people in order to be kind and help others is a unique dynamic that volunteer groups provide, and this dynamic has been shown to improve mood, mental well-being, physical health, and longevity (Marie Skelton, 2021 ). It makes sense, then, that people who join volunteer groups find it hard to walk away. Pope has stuck with Cake4Kids for 13 years, and has cherished the impact it has had on her relationships, conversations, and well-being.

“It gets positive conversations going, not only for ourselves, but for other people as well,” Pope says about the impact Cake4Kids has had on her friend and herself. “It takes your mind off of any negativity, and brings joy and smiles to everybody when we talk about it.”

Studies have shown that volunteering to help others has similar neurological and physiological effects as actions that benefit ourselves. According to Susan Albers, Psy. D, a psychologist for the Cleveland Clinic, when you help others, the reward center in your brain is activated – the same part of the brain that is activated when we eat a sweet treat, win a prize, or see a cute dog at the park. This neural pathway releases serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins, all neurotransmitters that improve mood and positively reinforce the actions that trigger their release. Thus, when we help others, we receive a mental boost that makes us feel good, and urges us to continue helping others.

The positive benefits of volunteering are endless – it is one of the best ways to improve well-being, meet new people, and impact your community. While we often view volunteering as an act of helping others for no personal gain, it is clear that the intangible benefits to the volunteer are vast and wonderful. The act of helping others without reimbursement is one of the purest forms of selflessness, but can often be just as beneficial for the volunteer as it is for the beneficiary.

Cake4Kids has done an exemplary job of identifying an area of need, creating a streamlined process to address it, and fostering a great culture of volunteering. The joy and positivity they have brought to so many children, volunteers, and even just to community members who hear about the initiative, is a testament to the power of organizations like theirs.

There are countless opportunities to volunteer in every community, and we at Padoogler encourage everyone to seek these opportunities out. Once you find something you are passionate about helping out with, you just may find yourself sticking with it for 13+ years like Vicki Pope – and all those years later, it will still be just as rewarding as the day you started.