The Great American Bake Sale has gone virtual!

In real life, bake sales bring in minimal profits. Sometimes a non-bake sale brings in a better total. Instead of baking, people donate the amount they would have spent on their donated baked goods. Typically, any fundraiser is most successful if it can target an audience that isn't already paying for the service. For example, a child care center selling t-shirts will only take in money out of those parents already paying tuition. But Girl Scouts selling cookies will sell to people who are not paying dues to the troop, and therefore will bring in a fair amount of usable funds.

When I heard about the Great American Bake Sale, I read through the information and decided it was worthwhile. I gave them my Mosaic Muffins. Adapted from another recipe to use my own garden produce, these muffins fit today's sensibilities by using homegrown ingredients and having a fair amount of nutrition. They taste so great that your family doesn't need to know they're good for you.

Money raised from the Great American Bake Sale will benefit Share Our Strength, a group working to eliminate child hunger in America. As unemployment increases (it's at a 25-year high right now), families have less money, and children have fewer regular meals. I see this every day in the students who concentrate better after lunch because they didn't eat breakfast, the kids lined up for free breakfast at school because they didn't have much to eat the night before, those who enviously eye the healthy snacks their wealthier friends brought from home. If children are going hungry in my relatively stable community, there are thousands worse off in other parts of the U.S. Share Our Strength spends a lot of time and money supporting after-school and summer meal programs.

You can help by spreading the word, making a donation to Share our Strength, or ordering the ebook. There's a button on the sidebar for the VGABS e-cookbook. Remember, if my muffins are in it, it must be good! I can't wait to see the other recipes.

Most of all, I'm happy to spread the word and increase contributions to help minimize - better yet, end - childhood hunger.

The Complete 2009 VGABS Recipes Ebook

Features all 170 of the submitted recipes. Many of the recipes include pictures.

On the checkout page, manually change the amount (USD) field to your donation amount.

Shopping cart courtesy of E-Junkie.

Because we know file size may be an issue for some, the below ebooks have split the 170 recipes into 4 categorized ebooks so that you can choose just 1 or 2 of your favorites, if you'd prefer. Just like for the Complete ebook, many of these recipes include pictures. And again, they are available for purchase based on any donation amount of the buyer's choosing.