Woman cooks up plan to share kindness - and cake - with others

An Auckland woman has organised a bake-a-thon to pass on random acts of kindness to people in need.

Joyce McDonald, 25, is behind the Ninja Baking Drop to be held on the last weekend of August, in time for the New Zealand Random Acts of Kindness Day on September 1.

Bakers would volunteer their time, ingredients and baking skills for the weekend before delivering the goodies to a nominee in need of "a little kindness".

The mother-of-one has had a pretty tough year, with various family members injured or becoming seriously unwell.

Her husband received spinal and brain injuries in a quad-bike accident and her cousin, Adam Glover, has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

"Cancer runs strong in our family," she said. "My mum has also had cancer, my brother had cancer when he was 18, my poppa had cancer and my nana, at 60, died of cancer when I was 15."

Joyce McDonald, pictured with her husband Ian McDonald and son Lucas, is looking for volunteer bakers.

Her work within the mental health sector was also challenging as it exposed how difficult life was for many who were also struggling.

"I was getting to a low point, so I wanted to do something positive, to focus on something positive."

Having been involved in earlier versions of the initiative Mrs McDonald was keen to see it happen again. "Being involved in this left me feeling full of warm feelings knowing that I had done something small for someone else."

Mrs McDonald said the uptake so far had been good but there was room for more volunteers and nominations. Registration would close on Friday, August 7.

Once all the registrations had been received each baker would be matched to a nominee in their area.

The baker would then be emailed the details of who they were baking for, how many people were in the family, dietary requirements and where to drop the parcel off.

The package of goodies would be left on the nominated person's doorstep along with a nice poem or note.

Mrs McDonald said it was nice to be able to give back to the community. "It's nice for people to know that they are noticed and that people do care."

How to get involved

• Keep up-to-date with what's needed at nzninjabakingdrop.weebly.com/
• Register to be a baker
• Nominate a person who needs a random act of kindness.