Helping a friend in need is a friend indeed!  Again the Ramada Plaza and Conference Centre in Abbotsford pulled out all the stops!  In just 2 bakings, Christine Lane, General Manager and Chef Jonathon of the Ramada provides Barb Giraud in her fundraising for Jaaja Barb's Home of Angels with  nearly $1000 worth of Banana Bread ( nearly 100 loaves!!). Selling these loaves to build a shelter for 32 homeless children in Jinja,Uganda.  We are so grateful for the generosity of the Ramada, Save On Foods, Sumas Way and  Kim Ross for making this possible.

A big thanks to Sue Weibe for letting us use her catering kitchen in her home to bake. Everyone gave up there Sunday and a Canucks game for helping and together with Sue, Gerri, Cindy and myself, we baked a total of 43 loaves. 

Meet the crew at Trinity Memorial United Church who opened their kitchen to us more than once. We baked approximately 80 loaves together and had so much fun with it..

More flour on us than in the bread I think. Thank you all  for participating and also for Gerri running out to the store every time we ran out of an ingredient.

Go Go Beans Restaurant

Who started the ball rolling?  Go Go Beans Restaurant.  If it wasn't for Martha and Pauline promoting our banana bread for well over one year and always helping us raise the money,  the first building would never have been completed.  You two really went the extra mile for us... We love you.

Let me introduce two girls who took the bull by the horns to promote  "Banana Bread" .

Kaitlin and Katie from "A Little More Good" wrote the following story explaining their plan.

A Little More Good Goes Bananas

Somewhere in this world, a house is being built - brick by brick, banana by banana.You might think there’s no way that bananas have anything to do with bricks, and even less to do with building a house. Let me correct you by introducing Barbara Giraud and her incredible project.

The team at A Little More Good decided that helping Barbara was the perfect project to donate time towards. A few emails and phone calls later, and we were well on our way to planning a bake sale. After Barbara told us that demand for her banana bread has been unimaginably high, we decided to make our bake sale into a month long fundraising event: A Little More Good Goes Bananas! For one week starting on Sunday, March 13th, anyone interested in purchasing a loaf of Barbara’s banana bread can sign up by email (see our contact information at the end of this article). Over the following three weeks, from March 20th to April 10th, our volunteers will bake the loaves (with Barbara’s input and recipe, of course!) and coordinate with our customers for delivery to various locations. Because we’ll be relying on our volunteers to bake and deliver this banana bread, we’ll only be selling an initial 125 loaves at $8.00 each, for a goal of $1000 raised for Barbara’s cause. If more than 125 loaves are requested, our team will fill the first 125 orders, and then hold a bake sale on April 10th where loaves of Barbara’s banana bread will be available to everyone who missed out on the initial order.

Our hope is that A Little More Good will be able to help Barbara return to Jinja at the end of April with enough money to make a good start on the second building at Jaaja Barb’s Home of Angels. It may be just a small step in the direction of seeing Edwin’sdream completed, but he is overjoyed simply at the idea that people across an entire ocean are helping him to reach his goal. And being a part of that joy? That’s worth its weight in, well, banana bread.......


written by Kaitlin and Katie

Update:   These two girls have secured Price Mart Foods in Abbotsford for a banana bread sale on April 9th from 10:00am until 2:00pm.  Be sure to stop by and say hi if you are in the neighborhood.  Let them know you are apart of this team also.

Our Wife and Mother Bakers....you guys are so awesome....

I cannot forget to thank the many bakers from around the Vancouver and Fraser Valley area.  So many of you ignoring your husbands as you spend your evenings baking, driving so far to deliver them and never giving up.  You are our inspiration and without you, this would never be possible.  And a huge thanks to Sheila and Debbie at Heaven Only Knows for being our middle man.  For opening your store to pass the orders along and raising money on your own.  This is what I call "good friends" and Edwin and I thank you both so very much.  Palm trees will be lining "Barb's Alley" for every one of you....