Deer Buzz

Movers and Shakers: Nonprofit

Trish Karter of Milton, CEO of the Dancing Deer Baking Co. in Boston, participated in a 1,500-mile bike ride from Atlanta to Boston over 15 days to raise money and awareness for family homelessness. Throughout the year, 35 percent of the profits from the Dancing Deer Sweet Home line of cookies and sweets are donated to the One Family Scholars program, which provides college scholarships for homeless mothers.

Read the full article at Enterprise.com

3 Minute Interview - Karter

Trish Karter, 52, jumped on her bike in late April and began a 15-day journey from Atlanta to Boston in order to raise awareness for the plight of the homeless. The chief executive officer of a baking company, Karter spends each evening at a shelter where she decorates gingerbread houses with the families and shares their stories on her blog: dancingdeer.com/ride. She spent an evening last week at Southeast’s Naylor Road shelter.

How do you get the word out about homelessness if you’re riding 100 miles each day?

I have an audio setup that motorcyclists use. My hands are on my bike and there’s a speaker in front of me that cancels out the wind noise. The other day I did a live radio interview while riding!

What exactly are you raising awareness for?

I’m raising awareness of what family homelessness really looks like, and what solutions are available, and I’m raising money for a scholarship fund to help homeless mothers finish their education and move on to stable lives as a pathway out of poverty. We have a bakery gift line called Sweet Home from which 35 percent of the retail price is donated to the scholarship fund.

Why homelessness?

Sitting at a kitchen table with a glass of milk is the iconic image of the comfort of home. Food and home are tied together, so it seemed an appropriate issue for us to focus on.

You arrive at a new shelter each evening. Do you sleep there?

When there’s room, but there’s often no room left.

How do your legs feel today?

Every fiber of my being felt like I was done when I woke up this morning. It’s exhausting — physically and emotionally. We had an amazing night at Naylor Shelter; the people there were so wonderful. I left my heart at Naylor Road, and I laid awake till 4 a.m. thinking about all the people I spoke with.

Dancing Deer CEO completes mission to fight homelessness

(NECN: Boston, Mass.) - A special honor for a woman who completed a 1,500 mile bike ride to raise awareness about homelessness.

Today, Boston Mayor Tom Menino congratulated Trish Karter. She’s the CEO of The Dancing Deer Baking Company. She rode from Atlanta to Boston to make a point, and make a difference in the lives of families living on the edge of homelessness.

Karter stayed at homeless shelters along the way, bringing gingerbread houses from her company.

CLICK HERE to watch an interview with Trish before setting out on a 15-day, 1,500-mile mission to promote positive social change.

Baker bikes 1,500 miles to share bounty

Any child would like a house made of candy, but for homeless children, a gingerbread house must appear even more magical. On Friday at downtown Lancaster’s Transitional Living Center, sugar-hopped youngsters buzzed about carrying gingerbread houses on precariously balanced cardboard squares. But, with peppermint chimneys, gumdrop shrubs and raisins standing in for cobblestone sidewalks, these weren’t just any gingerbread houses. And Trish Karter wasn’t just any visitor to TLC — after all, she’d spent the day riding her bicycle from a Baltimore homeless shelter to TLC at 105 E. King St.

On top of that, Karter — a sort of modern-day Willy Wonka — shipped all the fixings for those gingerbread houses from her Boston-based bakery, Dancing Deer Baking Co., to 15 homeless shelters from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., to New York City. Karter, 52, wanted to bring attention to the 600,000 American families and their 1.35 million children without housing in any given year. The entrepreneur and mother left home April 22 for a 15-day, 1,500-mile bike ride stopping at no less than 15 of the country’s best-run homeless shelters. Today she heads to Philadelphia, then Trenton and on to New York City.

Read the full article at LancasterOnline.com

Run*Walk*Ride Success May 2009 Newsletter

For most of us, fundraising is the #1 goal of our programs, but the communications and advocacy potential of working up a sweat for a good cause should not be overlooked.
Case in point: Trish Karter, CEO of Dancing Deer Bakery, rode 1,500 miles from Atlanta to Boston recently to promote solutions to family homelessness, her company’s signature cause.
Along the way she visited 15 shelters, met with numerous public officials and generated ample coverage.  It will do your heart good to spend a few minutes reading about her journey—and you might pick up a few ideas along the way on using blogs and video.

David Hessekiel
President
Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council