Summer baking camps foster youth

By Ian Sparks

JustCakeIt!, an Oxford bakery bakery owned and operated by Crystal Dunn, is offering a community service that is unique to her passion. Mondays and Thursdays every week during the summer, Dunn and her business play host to a youth group from Como as a part of her baking camp, “In the Mix.”

The two-day camp teaches a variety of skills that many could stand to learn, especially at a young age.

“We teach them how to bake, how to use scales, how to read a recipe,” Dunn said. “On Monday they’re in the kitchen, in the mix and just doing a lot of hands-on work. On Thursday, they come back and finish decorating their cakes.”

The program focuses mainly on how to ice, package, travel with and cut the cakes they make, but also serves as a means of showing children different career opportunities.

“That’s the main focus, to expose children to some different entrepreneurial skills and a different career path that people typically see as a hobby but it can be something more,” Dunn said.

The youth group is a part of E.D.U.C.A.T.E Inc., a nonprofit founded by a member of the Mississippi House of Representative, and Como native, Lataisha Jackson.

Like Jackson, Dunn is also a native of Como, making this particularly special for her.

“Lataisha and I were talking last summer just about how we can give these kids from our home more access. We talked about how we didn’t do anything like this over summer and how these kids didn’t have much before this, either.”

Going forward, Dunn envisions not just the kids at E.D.U.C.A.T.E. coming to her camp, but kids and adults in the area participating also.

Upcoming camps will be announced on the business website at www.justcakeit.net .

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