Inspired by her Mom, Baker donates cakes to families that lost children for Mother's Day

A baker from Miami is gifting cakes to families that have lost children on Mother's Day. Sherronda Daye, 41, a mother of two daughters, an 11- and 21-year-old, is the owner of Sweet Jalane's, a dessert catering company. Inspired by her own late mother, she launched a 100 Cakes in 10 Days project in honor of Mother's Day, which will see a cake being donated to families who have lost children, for every bundt cake purchased. Every year, Daye partners with various organizations to achieve different things. Daye worked with nonprofit Miami Children's Initiative to give cakes to families who lost their loved ones to gun violence. "We just kind of look at what's happening in the world, and where the most loss or the most impact can be given," said Daye, reported Good Morning America. 

Sherronda Daye has held the project for various causes but the root of it all comes from an incredibly personal moment with her mother. Daye's mother, Sherron Jalane Wilder, had unexpectedly passed away in 2014. Daye was completely derailed from the grief that followed her personal loss. In 2016, she found a letter from her mother, which spurred her to pick herself up and carry on. "I remembered a letter that I found in my mother's Bible when I was cleaning up her things after she passed. That letter told me to never stop doing this, that I had finally found my purpose in life — making somebody's life better," said Daye. "And so I was like, okay, it's Mother's Day. If I'm feeling this grief, and I'm grown, there have to be other mothers and other people, right?"

After coming across the letter, there were just eleven days left for Mother's Day but she decided to something about it and came up with the project. She made the project an annual thing on Mother's Day ever since. "It's just simply my way to connect with my mom on Mother's Day, because I am mothering my own children while I'm motherless," said Daye. "So when it gets around this time of year, I have a choice. I can wallow in my grief or I can use my bitterness to make somebody else's life sweeter." Apart from Sweet Jalane's, she also owns Defense Tea, which sells locally sourced immune-boosting drinks; and the Sweet Exchange, which hosts events to provide food for those in need and to address social issues.

Daye doesn't have a formal education in the culinary arts, and nor did she bake professionally. She worked as a chief of staff for a county commissioner but was out of work in 2010 after they had lost a reelection bid. She had no idea what to do but felt the urge to bake. "I was like, this is a joke. I don't bake," said Daye. "But I got out of their car, went in the kitchen, and baked all day. I baked everything I could get my hands on." Her family always bonded over food but baking was new. "I don't really know where this baking thing comes from," she added.

Baking turned out to be her calling in life, not just a profession but also serving as a purpose in life. "Anybody will get up every day and do a job that they feel is truly connected to their purpose and to the whole reason why you were placed on this Earth," said Daye. She wants to use her culinary skills to give back to the community. "I want to leave this life empty, meaning anything that I had inside of me that was supposed to be given to someone else, I gave it," said Daye. "Empty yet full because in return I will receive everything that I'm supposed to have. It's just really who I am, and it has worked for me for 41 years."