Early history of the Carr Center Cake Auction
29 years ago, The Alfred Carr Center in Zanesville Ohio was looking for a fund raiser to help meet operating expenses.
They hit upon a “Bake Sale” where both businesses and individuals would bake cakes, offer incentives, and the local AM radio – WHIZ-AM would donate air time for an auction. People would call in bids or be at the broadcast site and bid on cakes. And a cake could be sold multiple times i.e. doubled or tripled. When that happened, the sponsoring seller increases the number of incentive packages as many times as the cake is sold. The first buyer gets the cake and incentives and the remaining buyers get the incentives.
Pretty soon, this “Bake Sale” grew like topsy – got bigger and bigger each year and went to two days with 400+ cakes. The Carr Center Cake Auction often raises $140,000 or more each year. It’s said it’s the biggest bake sale in the country if not the world!
WHIZ-AM has been with the Cake Auction since the beginning and now streams it on the Internet. There are also 800 numbers and local numbers for bid lines now.
It’s a really big deal and is just amazing. ZCT has been involved since the early 1990’s. For the 29th Carr Center Cake Auction, bid for #291, Friday April 24th at 11:45am. ZCT’s cake is baked by Kennedy’s Bakery on 1025 Wheeling Ave. in Cambridge Ohio featuring ZCT’s logo. It’s a 10-inch German sweet chocolate cake. The incentives included with the cake are as follows: $50 credit towards any size advertisement in the 2015-2016 53rd season program, season tickets for the current year as well as season tickets for the 2015-2016 53rd season. A $290 value. ZCT will double or triple their incentives as needed.
