4 weeks – 3,500 mince pies baked – over 500 boxes sold – £1720 raised for CRY.
As I have always baked mince pies at Christmas time for family and friends, this year I decided I would bake and sell them to raise funds for CRY in memory of our son Andrew Key, who loved a mince pie or two.
What started off as a small venture quickly turned into a marathon as it just snowballed as more and more people asked to buy them. I originally thought I would maybe sell about 50 boxes but just the first order that came from my old work colleagues was for 62 boxes and that was the beginning of the huge task. Along with my husband Greg, who has only ever eaten my mince pies rather than made them, we gradually worked out a system to work to. From late November up until the weekend before Christmas almost every day was spent either shopping for yet more ingredients, assembling flat packed boxes, preparing pastry and Viennese mixture or actually putting together, baking and boxing the mince pies and delivering them. Our kitchen was turned into a factory and thankfully the oven coped! Plenty of mince pies for us too, as any mis-shapes or rejects ended up being eaten by us and our visitors, or in our freezer.
It was extremely hard work and we were absolutely shattered by the end of it, but it was for such a worthwhile cause and to be completely truthful, it gave us something to focus on in the run up to what we knew was going to be such a difficult time for us, our first Christmas without Andrew. As all around us life and Christmas preparations were normal and merry, ours just wasn’t and so being so busy occupied our minds and our time for those few weeks.
We would like to thank everybody who supported us by buying the mince pies. Thanks especially to Lucy at Berry Lane Medical Centre, Gabi at RPH Maternity Unit, Jack and Caroline at Longridge High School and Kath at RPH x-ray dept, who organised ordering from their workplaces, money collection and distribution of completed orders. Thanks also to Nickie and Duncan at Tap & Vent for the use of their forecourt for our stall at the Christmas late night shopping event. We are pleased to say we raised an amazing £1720.