The sweetest act in prison
A couple of Tuesdays ago, I stepped onto the Donovan yard and made my way to the gym instead of our usual meeting space. That day, everyone on the yard was in for a treat.
Inside the gym, a team of residents had lined up ten folding tables end-to-end. On those tables sat a single, continuous 57.5-foot cake.
Yes — one cake. Not a line of cakes arranged together. One, cohesive, hand-rolled cake stretching nearly the length of a semi-truck trailer. Made by our one and only Carter(unfortunately, not his real name, like all incarcerated folks I mention).
Carter is our chef extraordinaire. Without access to fresh vegetables, fruit, herbs, meats — or even knives, ovens, stoves, beaters or basic appliances — he creates gourmet-level dishes out of prison’s highly processed, shelf-stable ingredients. While he can whip up a delicious Thai peanut chicken, he's most famous for his cakes, which fellow prison residents regularly buy for birthdays, graduations and other celebrations.
When Carter brings cake into our circles, one of my greatest joys is to watch team members savor his beautifully crafted flavors — eyes twinkling as they’re transported back to childhood memories or pre-prison moments. After I return from a trip, Carter and I often gush over the experienced flavors, spices and various culinary experiences while the rest of the team smiles and indulges us.
This time, Carter wanted to do something extraordinary. Something unprecedented.
He held a vision — carried in his heart for over a year — to feed every person on the 750-person yard a slice of cake. A luxurious, homemade gift, crafted with care and offered freely to everyone.
He recruited a team and got to work. They spent hours separating Duplex cookies, scraping out the cream, and grinding the cookies into fine powder — all without a blender, mixer or even a proper countertop. Just ingenuity, persistence and heart.
After upgrading and reassembling the ingredients – with lots of chocolate, of course – and finding the way to roll – with 15 pairs of hands – the 57.5 feet of cake, Carter and the team served a slice to every person on the yard.
Pause for a moment: a prison resident led a team to handmake a 127-pound cake and serve it to every one of his 750 fellow residents. Not for attention. Not to impress the Parole Board. Not to earn favors. He wanted to share his passion with others; he wanted to give a unique and precious gift to many who don’t have access to something as simple as a homemade piece of cake. He wanted to share in a moment of delight and humanity with others.
These kinds of quiet, radical acts of generosity of spirit move me most deeply. They stretch me.
I admit, I see it often inside those Donovan walls: people doing things that cost them – sometimes dearly – for the benefit of others.
Each time, I’m invited to examine the expression of my own generosity: how deep, wide, unconditionally it goes. And thanks to these selfless expressions from the prison residents, I get stretched into deeper, wider, increasingly unconditional expressions of my own.
You have a choice: How might you show up in service to someone today? Can you stretch yourself by giving to someone you don’t know, or giving anonymously, or giving more than what feels comfortable? While it may cost you, discover something unexpected — something that far outweighs the cost.
P.S. For the fellow numbers nerds (like Carter and me), here are a few cake stats:
57.5 feet long
127.7 lbs
235,950 calories total
800 slices
2,178 Duplex cookies
P.P.S. It wasn’t until later that I realized this was the first time, in my 9+ years inside Donovan, that I’ve had the privilege of eating food made by a resident. And yes, Carter’s cake more than lived up to the twinkle I so often see in our team’s eyes. As did the sugar rush. ;-)
