Sibling bakers raise dough for Congo hospital
LOUISVILLE — Among all the new holiday gift catalogs out this season is one that pays tribute to two young Louisville bakers who decided to give the biggest catalog gift possible to people they had never met — starting from scratch.
Gabe and Livvy Feinn have just returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa after seeing how $35,000 they raised for a Samaritan's Purse catalog project — by baking more than 100 cakes and more than 2,500 cupcakes — was used to renovate the maternity ward of a village mission hospital there.
The 7,100-mile trip with their mother, Vicki, was arranged in August by the Samaritan charitable and religious relief organization, which features Gabe and Livvy in its new 2015 Christmas gift catalog, along with a story about their fundraising project accompanied by photos of the hospital construction.
Gabe, 15, and Livvy, 11, raised the $35,000 for the Nyankunde Hospital project after seeing it listed as the most expensive "gift" in Samaritan's 2013 gift catalog.
“This brother and sister pair have shown how God can use anyone — no matter their age,” said Samaritan head Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, in a statement from the Boone, N.C.-based group.
Back in Louisville, Gabe said they knew they could do the smaller projects in the catalog, but they "wanted to do something we knew we could not do alone."
So they prayed about it and resolved to go for the gold. "God gave us the idea," he said.
At first the brother and sister, who live with their parents and grandmother in Lake Forest and attend Southeast Christian Church, decided to raise $14 to send chicks to help a family in the Congo. But when they easily raised $35 by selling baked goods at a neighborhood garage sale, their aspirations escalated, and they decided to bypass the chicks, a goat for $70, medical supplies for $150 and even a water purification system for $10,000 that could have served a whole village.
Instead, they were determined to raise the whopping $35,000 for the hospital project. And they achieved their goal with help from big and small donors, including many children. Among them were summer campers at Southeast Christian's Country Lake Christian Retreat north of Henryville, Ind., who gave up snack tokens to make donations.
"We all knew if we had not prayed about everything, it would not have worked out," Livvy said.
They also relied on a Facebook page Gabe — who became known as "Gabe the Cake Man" — created to publicize the project, and they also wrote online about their experiences at gabesavestheday.blogspot.com.
Samaritan's Purse also set up a special website for donations to their project, and the two are pictured on the Samaritan website at samaritanspurse.org/gift-catalog/sweet-giving, which also features a video about the two.
In some cases, people gave money directly to the Feinns, but Vicki Feinn said she was "super diligent" about making a credit card donation to the website for the same amount that same day, Vicki Feinn said.
Gabe and Livvy, who started the project when they were 13 and 9, emphasized that they didn't "sell" any cakes — they just made them as rewards or in conjunction with donations.
"A big part of their message is that anyone can do something to serve God and serve others," their mother said. "They thought, 'What can we do? We don't have $35,000, but we can make cupcakes.'"
During the trip to the Congo, her husband, Benjamin, stayed home run the family business, the Koch Corp., a window and door company that specializes in government and historic restoration projects, that they bought eight years ago.
"Of course we’re really proud of them," Vicki Feinn said of Gabe and Livvy. "But I think it’s bigger than being proud of them. We’re just really grateful that Gabe and Livvy have caught the vision that anyone can glorify God and help others. That’s been their motivation right from the very beginning"
"We can't change the world on our own, but we want to encourage people to ask God what you can do," Gabe said.
Follow Martha Elson on Twitter: @MarthaElson_cj