Baker shows veterans Valentine’s Day love with cupcakes

February 11, 2015 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

A volunteer from the organization Soldiers’ Angels helps distribute cupcakes to veterans at the V.A. hospital in Bay Ridge on Tuesday. Eagle photo by Paula Katinas

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Military veterans got to enjoy an early Valentine’s Day gift that satisfied a sweet tooth, thanks to a baking company president who wanted to show his appreciation for their service to the country.

Joe Dornoff, president of a company called BakeMeAWish.com, had 600 Valentine’s Day cupcakes and scores of small, chocolate mousse “Freedom Cakes” baked by his company and brought them to the Veterans Administration New York Harbor Healthcare System’s Brooklyn Campus in Bay Ridge on Tuesday afternoon. The facility is also known as the Brooklyn V.A. Medical Center.

Volunteers from Soldiers’ Angels, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing assistance to veterans and their families, teamed up with Dornoff to hand out the free cupcakes and cakes to hundreds of veterans who eagerly lined up in the hospital’s first floor hallway.

The veterans started lining up 30 minutes before the distribution was scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.

They were rewarded for their patience. In addition to the cupcakes and cakes, they also received free cups of coffee.

“It’s very, very nice of them. Veterans like to feel loved every once in a while,” Harold Radish, a World War II veteran, told the Brooklyn Eagle. Radish, who served in the U.S. Army during the war, was held as a prisoner of war in Germany for four months. He grew up in Brownsville and now lives in Queens.

Dornoff said the cupcake party was his way of thanking veterans for their military service. “We have done this all over the country. We’re a feel-good company. There’s always a warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you bite into a cupcake and we wanted to give that feeling to our veterans,” he told the Eagle.

BakeMeAWish.com, which was founded in 2004, has been working together with Soldiers’ Angels since 2008 to deliver cupcakes and cakes to veterans and active duty service members in hospitals all across the U.S., including the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center near Washington D.C.

Soldiers’ Angels was founded in 2003.

“We have also delivered cakes to our soldiers, sailors and marines serving in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Dornoff said.

Dornoff’s company also offers a special incentive to customers to purchase its products. “We encourage all customers to show the love to veterans by purchasing a ‘Valentine’s Day Freedom Cake’ for $75 for a loved one and in return, BakeMeAWish.com will send another to a veteran in a V.A. hospital here in the U.S.,” he said.

At the Brooklyn V.A. on Tuesday, the veterans were loving the attention.

Vietnam War veteran Juan Ortiz, a U.S. Marine from East New York, gladly took his “Freedom Cake,” but told the Eagle he had no plans to eat it.”I’m going to give it to my wife. It will make her very happy,” he said.