Puffy Paws gift from big-time Web site takes the cake

Posted by Nancy Guenther Chapman on December 19th, 2009 at 1:45 am

Cakewrecks.com makes fun of over­done or badly done cake dec­o­ra­tions — and raised thou­sands of dol­lars for Englewood’s Puffy Paws Kitty Haven.

It might be hard to believe, but a per­son can make a liv­ing mak­ing fun of bak­ery disasters.

Equally unlikely, per­haps: a Web site called Cakewrecks can gen­er­ate a lot of cash for the self-proclaimed World’s Great­est Cathouse.

That’s what hap­pened Tues­day as Jen Yates made Puffy Paws Kitty Haven the ben­e­fi­ciary of the day dur­ing her “Char­ity Count­down.” Vis­i­tors to Cakewrecks.com were chal­lenged to give $1 to Puffy Paws, result­ing in a sub­stan­tial wind­fall for the haven.

Yates is the author of the New York Times best­seller “Cake Wrecks: When Pro­fes­sional Cakes Go Hilar­i­ously Wrong.” Puffy Paws owner Rick Kingston says more than 1 mil­lion peo­ple fol­low Yates’ updates on Twitter.com.

Along­side pic­tures of cakes with over­done dec­o­ra­tions and under­neath an image of a baby on a car­rot, Cakewrecks.com has the fol­low­ing announcement:

“Instead of buy­ing gifts or trees or dec­o­ra­tions this year, John and I are going to donate a min­i­mum of $200 to a dif­fer­ent char­ity or wor­thy cause, every day, for the next two weeks.

“Are you up for my dollar-a-day chal­lenge? Then give one dol­lar each day to each char­ity. That’s it! Together, we can use the power of Wreck­age for good, and make a dif­fer­ence for those in need.”

First on her list was charitywater.org, which uses 100 per­cent  of the money raised to drill for water in devel­op­ing nations. Next, in order: St. Judes’s Children’s Hos­pi­tal, Heifer Inter­na­tional, Child’s Play, Share Our Strength, Puffy Paws Kitty Haven, Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders and Love 146.

How did a cat sanc­tu­ary in Engle­wood wind up along­side such heavy-hitting charities?

Yates, an Orlando res­i­dent, is inspired by the Kingstons’ will­ing­ness to take in any cat, even ones with severe health problems.

“John and I are huge ani­mal lovers,” Yates said.” “…I do want peo­ple to know what a won­der­ful thing it is that Puffy Paws is doing!”

To explain what Kingston and his wife are doing, she posted this expla­na­tion: “Puffy Paws is a non­profit, no-kill, and — get this — cage-free shel­ter. It is a fan­tas­ti­cally clean, warm and friendly envi­ron­ment filled with over 200 happy cats.”

Yates would know. She has actu­ally vis­ited the haven.

As of Thurs­day evening, Rick Kingston said he had got­ten $7,000 from Yates’ appeal, and dona­tions were still com­ing in.

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