Family offers cake recipe for donation to charity effort
When Judy and Robert Wade’s house in the Matthews Community was hit with a tornado Easter Sunday, hardly anything remained. The house had become unsalvageable in the span of seconds.
When their son Jerel Wade, Perry Central Middle School principal, was inspecting the place, Judy pointed out that the pound cake left over from lunch was untouched in its glass plate.
“I honestly don’t know why the pound cake was still there,” Judy said. “Everything else was gone, but it was left.”
Now, Jerel Wade has created the Pound Cake Promise, a nonprofit that is donating proceeds to volunteers at natural disaster sites.
“My dad has been involved in disaster relief for 15 years,” he said. “This is the first time they’ve been on the receiving end of that help. We want to use this picture and this story to be a part of disaster relief in other people’s lives.”
Jerel took some photos of the cake and posted them to Facebook that night. The next day, the pound cake’s image had “made its way around the world,” he said. People from around the United States, Canada and even Kenya were sending him encouraging messages. National media were calling to ask questions. Even prominent pastor Franklin Graham posted it as his disaster-relief organization Samaritan’s Purse responded to work in Jones County.
Jerel and his sisters, Kim Pickering and Robin Pierce, used the moment to start their nonprofit. Some details can be found at poundcakepromise.org.
“For a nominal donation,” Jerel said, “we’ll give out a recipe for the pound cake. A lot of folks said it must be something special, so we did that. My mom has been gracious enough to give it out — all Southern mothers have their tweaks and spins on a recipe, and she’s allowed us to give it to people.”
The nonprofit will also sell T-shirts.
“We’ll be using those sales to help others who go to disasters, because there’s a lot of expenses involved in helping,” Jerel said. “We want to offset those costs, so we will be covering our community here, starting local, and branch out. Hopefully we’ll find those people in need and help in any way we can.”
The Wade family is amazed at the local and national response their story received, but Jerel wants to direct attention toward volunteers who helped in the rash of storms that recently took lives and devastated hundreds in Jones County.
“We’re thankful for the large number of people who not just helped us, but our community and other communities that were affected,” he said. “It’s refreshing to see that, how God has had His hand in everything that goes on, even in the cleanup from that tornado. It’s good to see people are willing to give and help out.”
The storms caused deaths across six states. Jones and Jasper counties were some of the worst-hit areas, particularly the Soso area. Swaths of the community have left their homes to help clean and hand out supplies.
“(The pound cake) is one of those strange things that happens during tornadoes, but to us, cake is about family, gathering around the table, sharing cake and coffee, so it reminded us that even though the house is gone, the things that are really important are intact,” Jerel Wade said.
“I’m just amazed something like that could be left,” Judy Wade said. “It had not moved after we left it after lunch, just sitting there.”
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May 09, 2020 at 03:09AM
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Mom's dessert from Easter tornado spurs Pound Cake Promise - leader-call.com
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