Bella Black, 15, Bakes Up Big Ten Campaign To Raise $100K

By Nick Krewen

Fifteen-year-old Bella Black is not only making a difference: she’s baking a difference. For 10 years, she has been hosting Bella's Bake Sale in Toronto on her family’s driveway in their Beaches neighbourhood, selling cupcakes, cookies and other pastries in order to raise over $100,000 to build schools in developing countries, via WE Charity.

Now, she’s launching her most ambitious project: To commemorate her 10^th year of philanthropy and being in Grade 10, the Malvern Collegiate Institute student has initiated The Big Ten campaign. Her goal is to raise enough money over a single school year to finance the construction of 10 schoolhouses, which cost $10,000 each.

She holds her bake sale two weeks after the school year begins but continues to “sell” virtual cupcakes via donation on her web site, issuing a tax receipt for $10 or more.

“I want people to settle in first at school, then when I announce the bake sale and that I am raising money for kids who don’t have a school to go to, it hits hard,” Black, one smart cookie, tells Samaritanmag.

So far, Black, who only just turned 15 on Dec. 26, has financed the construction of four schools in Kenya (one through a program called Change Heroes), two in India, two in Haiti, one in Nicaragua and one in rural China. – Continue reading this Nick Krewen feature here.