Features Editor

March 28, 2000 10 PM

Once again, the Brundidge Cooks for a Cure for Cancer are back in the kitchen baking a batch of scratch cakes to raise money to aid in the fight against cancer.

The cakes will be auctioned off on the Thursday WTBF Morning Shows beginning tomorrow and continuing for the next two weeks. Auction time is between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m.

The Thursday Morning Shows are broadcast live from downtown Brundidge and the cakes can be picked up immediately.

Susie Hastey, organizer of the group of cooks, said tomorrow there will be two coconut cakes, a 10-layer chocolate cake, a pound cake and a caramel cake on the auction block.

"Every cake is made from scratch and by some of the best cooks in the Brundidge area," she said. "We do this because we want to do something to aid in the fight against cancer. We want to show that we care."

Last year, the Cooks for a Cure raised more than $1,000 with the Thursday Morning Auctions.

Hastey, herself, is a cancer survivor and so are some of the other cooks. But all, in some way, have been touched by this dreadful disease.

What makes this "fighting" group a little unusual is that they aren’t actually a Relay for Life team.

"We got started too late last year to have a team and we’re just an informal group, so we didn’t form a team this year," Hastey said. "However, all of the money we raise goes to Relay for Life and most of us will participate in Relay with other teams because many of us are on other teams, too. This is just something extra we want to do because the cause is so important to all of us."

Hastey said the Cooks for a Cure are enthusiastic and willing.

"We all feel good about being able to use our talents in the kitchen for such a worthy cause," she said. "And, we had a lot of fun last year. It’s rewarding to see how willingly people support the fight against cancer."

Hastey said everybody has their favorite cake and there will be a variety of cakes on all three auction days – four if the demand is there.

The auctions were planned early so the cakes can be frozen and served at Easter if the buyer so chooses.

"Some people freeze them for later but some want to enjoy them right away," Hastey said. Last year, we really had fun with a 10-layer chocolate cake. Janie Boswell really wanted it and (dad) Britt Thomas had told her she could bid up to $100."

Janie thought she had the cake in the saver but, when Jim Roling announced only 10 more seconds on the block, her sister Katie took the cordless phone into another room and outbid her sister for the luscious 10-layer cake.

"That was just like a sister," Hastey said, laughing. "I’m sure Janie got her share of the cake but it surely made the action interesting that day."

Hastey invites everyone to get their bids ready Thursday morning because whatever it costs to walk home with the cake is another small wedge driven in the disease that is expected to take the lives of 552,200 Americans this year.