CHICAGO — A Lincoln Park bakery is pitching in to give 1,000 kids from across the city a free lunch at a community-building event Saturday.
Students from throughout the city and suburbs will travel to Tilden High School this weekend for Crossing the Street, an event that helps with community building and provides the kids with information about annual poetry competition Louder Than a Bomb.
The organizers try to provide the kids with a full, free meal with the help from local bakeries and restaurants — but they learned a bakery they normally work with wouldn't be able to provide dessert this year, said Sean Kaplan, who raises donations for the event.
With just weeks left before Crossing the Street, Kaplan began to reach out to bakeries in the city and ask for help. The first one he tried was Nothing Bundt Cakes, 1953 N. Clybourn Ave.
"'We'll totally help you!'" the owners told Kaplan, he said.
The only hitch: The bakery wouldn't be able to make enough trays of dessert to fully serve the about 1,000 kids expected to come to Crossing the Street.
Kaplan reached out to other Nothing Bundt Cakes franchises in the suburbs and, with the help of other bakery owners, has been able to get nearly all of the cakes he needs. He's just four trays of desserts short and is contacting other bakeries to fill the gap.
"This community of bakeries now has come to the rescue in the last week," Kaplan said.
Kids at the Crossing the Street event will get free sandwiches, bags of chips and water bottles with the help of an event sponsor — but being able to also provide them with a dessert adds something special, Kaplan said.
“To me, it’s just a simple thing. These teens are coming from all over the city of Chicago and they’re getting a free lunch … as a result of being a part of this poetry festival,” Kaplan said. “They’re getting a dessert. They’re getting something sweet. …It just makes things sweeter, y’know? It makes the experience sweeter.”
Louder Than a Bomb is an Olympics-like poetry competition — the largest of its kind in the world — that brings in children and teens from throughout the city and suburbs to share poetry individually or in groups.
