While many students choose to spend their summers as interns, camp counselors, or part-time workers, Courtney Murray ’11 and Danielle Dalton ’12 are giving back in different ways by developing their own not-for-profit charities.

Dalton founded her non-profit with Neena Patel, a friend from Lemont, Illinois, when they both wanted a way to donate cakes.

“We could not find an existing organization that had a cake program in place,” Dalton said. Thus, Cakes for a Cause, NFP was born.

Cakes for a Cause, NFP is an organization designed to provide cakes for special occasions to those in need of financial assistance. Clients can place orders through sign-up sheets at local food pantries and must be patrons of the food pantry to qualify.

To have the cakes baked and decorated, Dalton enlists the help of local high school students. This summer, she and Patel ran a camp to teach cake-decorating skills. These students will continue to help create the cakes so that Cakes for a Cause, NFP may continue donating through the school year.

Murray found her inspiration while on the Florida trip with the Deerfield swim team. The team attended a packing event for Kids Against Hunger, a Minnesota-based organization designed to send meals to families in need in disaster areas.

Upon returning home to Connecticut, Murray discovered KAH operates through satellite organizations across the country. As there was not a satellite in the northeast, she set out to become the youngest person to be approved for packing.

Kids Against Hunger- Windsor, Inc. held its first packing event on August 14. Over thirty volunteers helped pack twenty-one thousand nutritious meals to send to Haiti.

“In the future we hope to hold packing events for Sierra Leone, Nicaragua, or Ghana,” said Murray.

More information on their non-profits can be found at their websites www.cakesforacausenfp.org and www. kahwindsor.org.