A new student organization is indulging Foggy Bottom’s sweet tooth this semester.

Baking for Better at GW, which GW approved in early December, aims to foster a stress-free environment for students to whip up baked goods for local nonprofits like Cakes4Kids. Organization leaders said the group will blend community involvement with recipe-making, a dual purpose that members launched last semester because of their personal passions for baking.

Junior Serena Finger, the organization’s secretary, said she grew up eating her grandmother’s cousin’s rich lemon cakes during Jewish holidays, who later passed the recipe to her before she died. Finger said it is a “cherished recipe” and her favorite thing to make.

Finger said she wanted to start the group to connect with other students and provide food to those in need in the local Foggy Bottom community. She said Baking for Better hopes to partner with the nonprofit organization Cakes4Kids, the main inspiration behind the organization, where members will help bake and decorate birthday cakes for D.C.-area kids who otherwise wouldn’t have access to one. After Finger applied to launch her service-based organization, OrgHelp connected her with two first-year students via email, who were also looking to start a baking group with a focus on offsetting the stress many college students face while transitioning into adulthood.

“We all agreed that we wanted to create a place where GW students could share their recipes and bake things that were comforting to them and then be able to bring that to our D.C. community as well,” Finger said.

Finger said while the organization temporarily plans on using kitchens in residence halls like Thurston and Lafayette to make their goods, they hope to use the Teaching Kitchen at the Culinary Medicine Program at GW for future baking classes. Finger added that members will be able to start working with Cakes4Kids once organization leaders complete an online training.

Finger said at GW she missed the “action of baking,” as cooking in residence halls can be difficult with insufficient fridge space and kitchen materials. Finger said she lived on the Mount Vernon Campus her first year and would often store the limited ingredients like butter, flour and sugar that she could fit in her dorm fridge to bake recipes like chocolate chip cookies and lemon cake in her residence hall’s communal kitchen.

She said baking sweets for fun helped her get to know other students better because she used the activity as a conversation starter.

“People would pass by all the time, and I met a lot of people and chatted with everyone when I was in that kitchen,” Finger said. “So I felt like even though I wasn’t making any detailed intense baking projects, it just still brought the feeling of community.”

Josh Lipman, a first-year student and the finance chair of the organization, said officials approved the organization in early December, and the executive board plans to hold a bake sale Feb. 25 in Kogan Plaza, where members will sell treats like shortbread cookies.

Lipman said they plan to use the money raised at the sale for baking materials, equipment and kitchen expenses, since they currently do not have Student Government Association funding.

Lipman said Baking for Better plans to have meetings that will offer baking tutorials for students on global recipes, partnering with cultural organizations to help teach. They plan to have both baking sessions and meetings where students will bake goods for their charitable partner organizations.

First-year Ari Ellerbroek, the president of Baking For Better at GW, said she wants the group to promote “relaxation” and help both experienced and novice bakers learn, have fun and serve the D.C community.

“I hope for students that join us, that it benefits them both emotionally by giving them a community and also fulfills them because they’re doing something to help the outside community,” Ellerbroek said.

Ellerbroek said the group has garnered “a lot of interest” by word of mouth, postering in residence halls and launching an Instagram page. Ellerbroek said without another baking group at GW, she is hoping that this attracts people who are looking for an organization that is calming, while also allowing them to create something they are proud of.

“I was very surprised when there wasn’t a baking club at George Washington because everyone that I’ve told about the club, they’re all like, ‘I’d join’,” Ellerbroek said.

Ellerbroek said as a kid growing up in Iowa, she participated in a lot of baking projects over the summer for county fairs and used baking as a tool to relax when she lived with a host family in Germany during an exchange program her senior year of high school.

“It was a relaxing way for me to just zone into baking – a break from the outside world,” Ellerbroek said.

Ellerbroek said bringing a baking organization to campus will improve students’ “mental health” by allowing for an environment where students didn’t have to worry about costs of equipment.

“Hopefully we’ll have all the ingredients paid for, all of that paid for, so students don’t have to worry about the money aspect of it,” Ellerbroek said. “They can just bake and relax.”

Brooke Forgette contributed reporting.