Celebrate 10 Years of Baking Muffins & Feeding Folks Experiencing Homelessness

BY JACOB “MUFFIN MAN” KAUFMAN

Greetings, my dear followers of The Stuart!

Do you like yummy baked goods? Do you like helping people? Do you like the Richter Scale, Metric System, and/or Bo Derek’s 1979 classic breakout sex comedy, “10”?

If the answer to any of the above was a resounding (or even mildly enthusiastic) “yes”, then I invite you to participate in the 10th Annual National Muffin Day on Sunday, February 25th!  What is National Muffin Day? It’s a holiday created by me, Jacob Kaufman, the Muffin Man of San Francisco, and my muffin friend Julia Levy in Atlanta, in which we encourage delicious philanthropy for all!

Participating in National Muffin Day is as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Bake muffins on February 25th! The yummier, the better.

2. Give muffins! Donate your muffins to people experiencing homelessness in your city, or to local shelters.

3. #givemuffins! Take a photo of your group and your muffins and post them to social media with the hashtags #givemuffins.

But wait, let’s sweeten the deal (pun very, very much intended).  For each person who participates, I’ll donate $5 to Project Homeless Connect, an organization that provides valuable resources to people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco, and $5 to Family Promise, a national organization that sets up programs around the country for families experiencing homelessness.

That means that if you bake with your roommate, your sister’s screaming toddler son (who will definitely help with the part where you need to lick the spatula, trust me), and that hot guy from the gym who looks great when he’s wearing an apron (and nothing else), then $40 will be donated to charities…except it might really be $80 because I can get donation matching from my employer. We’ve sent over $10,000 to charities each of the past 5 years!

But don’t take my word for it, ask our friendly media friends: SF Standard, SF Chronicle, Forbes, CNN, ABC, CBS’ Inside Edition, J Weekly, and the Marin IJ (because yes, I moved to the suburbs). And most importantly, Broke-Ass Mother-Stinkin’ Stuart, who has been with us since our first year!

Our first year we had roughly 70 bakers, but our numbers have been going up and up (well, except for that darn pandemic), and last year we had 582!

Our goal for this year is to break 600 — won’t you join the fun and help us to meet our goal?

Still need some incentives?

Here are the Top 10 reasons to participate in the 10th Annual National Muffin Day:

10. Before handing out muffins, you are required to do a quality check. A delicious quality check!

9. You can support your favorite farmer’s market by buying fresh berries for your muffins.

8. It’s a perfect opportunity to whip out your favorite muffin-related puns, like “you ain’t seen muffin yet!” or “muffin compares 2 U”.

7. You can impress people with your knowledge about the REAL story of the Muffin Man of Drury Lane (hint…it’s dark).

6. You get to use what I like to call the “10-stroke method” for mixing your muffin batter.

5. Doing good deeds like handing out muffins to folks in need might slightly reduce the chances of you burning in hell for all eternity.

4. It’s a great excuse to finally ask out your crush. Seriously, could you imagine how hot it would be if somebody invited you over on a first date to bake muffins and help people experiencing homelessness?

3. You get to use that great line that has been meming across the interwebs: “‘muffins’ spelled backwards is what you do when you take them out of the oven!”

2. Bananas. Chocolate Chips. Need I say more?

1. Because we’ve been doing National Muffin Day for TEN YEARS — TEN YEARS MAN, TEN YEARS!* So whether you’re a long-term baker or it’s your first time putting on oven mitts, there’s never been a better year to participate!

So there you have it folks, let’s all bake and #givemuffins on February 25th.  I can’t wait to see your muffins!

*Yes, that’s a reference to Grosse Point Blank.