Well, Austin Bakes has hit the big time! As I’m writing this, I’m preparing to go on Fox 7 News to promote the bake sale with Kate Payne, a local author who is baking for Bastrop at our South Congress location.

That’s not the only good news: Yesterday we received press in the Austin American Statesman, and the bake sale has been covered on over a dozen local blogs and media sources. We are over 100 bakers and volunteers strong for Saturday, and counting. It doesn’t get any better than that, right?

Wrong. Today it gets a lot better, thanks to Austin’s own Key Ingredient

Starting today, Key Ingredient will match the first $1,000 in contributions on our online giving page. Together, we could raise $2,000 for the Central Texas Wildfire Fund before the bake sale even begins.

If you will not be able to attend the bake sale on Saturday, would you please consider making a gift to the Central Texas Wildfire Fund online today? Your dollars will do twice as much good in Bastrop and other parts of Central Texas devastated by wildfire.

If you don’t carry cash but want to shop at the sale, please consider making a gift online today. When you show us your gift receipt at the sale on Saturday, we’ll help you shop for the baked goods of your dreams! And your purchase will be twice as nice thanks to Key Ingredient’s matching contribution.

I’m sure you get the point: we have a tremendous opportunity to start our bake sale $2,000 ahead. Please make a gift online today so that we can take advantage of every available dollar of Key Ingredient‘s matching challenge.

One last bit of good news: Key Ingredient is an Austin-based startup company that loves home cooks. Their mission is to help home bakers and food bloggers preserve and share the recipes they love on the Internet. As a thank you to the 100+ amateur cooks who are baking for Bastrop, Key Ingredient will be giving away a Demy Digital Recipe Reader to one us on Sunday, October 2nd. We will select a winner at random from our volunteer list and announce the lucky winner here on the Austin Bakes Blog. We are still in need of bakers and volunteers at all seven sale sites. If you’re interested in joining us, please send us an email  so that we can get you signed up.

That’s all the good news I can squeeze into one post. Thank you all for your continuing support of Austin Bakes for Bastrop, and for helping us meet our fundraising goal with Key Ingredient. Together, we are going to do a lot of good this weekend!