Let Them Eat Cake! serves up another year of the Community Giving Tree

For Let Them Eat Cake!, it just wouldn’t be the holiday season without displaying its annual Community Giving Tree in the front window of the downtown bakery.

So for the third straight year, Paulette Coffman, who owns the cupcake bakery at 310 C St., and her family have put out and decorated with wish-filled ornaments the tree that has been responsible for brightening the holidays for so many in need in years past.

“We’ve been really lucky that everyone has been so supportive of this,” Coffman said Thursday, thinking back to the previous two years where she’s been able to grant every wish hanging on the tree.

“It will be here as long as we’re here,” she added. “Every year.”

To participate, head over to Let Them Eat Cake! and choose an ornament on the tree in the front of the store. Make sure to stop by the counter and check off the ornament number with the staff so they can keep track of which wishes are being fulfilled.

Then, go buy as many presents on the individual’s list as desired and bring them back to the bakery, unwrapped. The deadline for dropping off the gifts at Let Them Eat Cake! is Dec. 21.

Each ornament, which contains the age and gender of the person, belongs to one individual who has listed several items on the back that he or she would like to receive for Christmas.

Those donating can give one or all of the presents on the back of the ornament. Or, in some cases like in years past, people can give even more.

“Some people go above and beyond,” said Casey Trauty, Coffman’s boyfriend, who helps with the Giving Tree every year. “They’ll give what’s listed on the ornaments, and then they’ll give (a few extra things as well).”

This year, Coffman has chosen to grant the wishes of families served by the Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Center in Woodland, teens from the New Foundations program of the Solano County Juvenile Probation institution and foster animals at the Yolo County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

In addition to the ornaments, two of the organizations have running wish lists that people can donate to year-round.

For New Foundations, the juvenile program, Coffman says the bakery is happy to accept extra board games, books, basketballs and Nintendo Wii video games.

New Foundations is an intensive coeducational program for Solano County wards of the court. The program addresses the needs of court-referred wards through the age of 18.

The ongoing wish list for the SADVC can be found on its website at http://www.sadvc.org/donation.

The center provides crisis intervention services to battered women, sexual assault victims and abused children in Yolo County.

The SPCA provides shelter for homeless, lost or abused pets and offers low-cost spay and neuter services, humane investigations and public education.

— Reach Tom Sakash at tsakash@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8057. Follow him on Twitter at @TomSakash

Paulette Coffman and Casey Trauty of Let Them Eat Cake!, a cupcake bakery in downtown Davis, hang ornaments with Christmas wish lists on a Community Giving Tree at the bakery. Beneficiaries this year are families served by the Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Center in Woodland, teens from the New Foundations program of the Solano County Juvenile Probation institution and foster animals at the Yolo County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo

Tom Sakash

Tom Sakash covers the city beat for The Davis Enterprise. Reach him at tsakash@davisenterprise.net, (530) 747-8057 or @TomSakash.

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