Children’s Museum’s 100th birthday wish? For help donating birthday cakes to food pantries
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis turns 100 next year, and has only one birthday wish: To spend 2025 sharing thousands of birthday cakes.
Museum leaders say they will donate birthday cake kits to local food pantries and host pop-up birthday parties for families facing food insecurity throughout 2025.
However, they need the public’s help to accomplish the year-long celebration.
The museum is asking for food donations to help create the shelf-safe birthday cake kits. The kits will need:
- Boxed cake mix
- Cans of icing
- Candles
The museum says it will provide pans and soda to complete the kit.
Why soda? The museum says the soda replaces eggs, water, and oil by creating the carbon dioxide that’s normally produced by regular cake ingredients reacting with baking soda in the cake mix. That’s how the cakes rise and stay nice and fluffy.
The museum will start accepting donations on Dec. 6, the museum’s 99th birthday. People can drop off donations in bins at the museum throughout the year.
The goods will then be packed and sent out to food banks starting Feb. 6.
Museum leaders say birthday cake ingredients are not thought of as a necessity at food pantries and are not often donated. Museum CEO Jennifer Pace Robinson said in a press release they hope to fill this gap and help spark birthday joy throughout Indianapolis.
“Everyone deserves to feel celebrated on their birthday, and a birthday cake is part of that experience,” Robinson said. “Through our birthday cake kits, we hope to bring a sense of joy and happiness to even more children.”
The birthday cake endeavor was born from a partnership between the museum, Kroger, Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, and the Mid-North Food Pantry.
According to Gleaners, more than 1 in 7 people in Indiana are facing hunger, which can significantly affect a child’s ability to reach their full potential. The pantries hope the cake kits can amplify their message of childhood hunger and encourage others to share birthday joy in Indianapolis.
The final birthday kit donation will be made on the museum’s 100th birthday, Dec. 6, 2025.
