Sapp
Sometimes you can have your cake and bid on it too.
In support of Taylor Sapp, the 23-year-old Lake City police officer who was recently diagnosed with lymphoma, Columbia County Sheriff’s Office’s Sarah Wheeler organized a cake auction that ends Friday.
The response has been “overwhelming,” Wheeler said.
“Honestly, we’re already blown away,” she said Wednesday afternoon shortly after opening up the auction on a public Facebook group. “About every cake already has a bid of $50 or more.”
The bidding on the 55 cakes will continue through the group, Taylor Sapp Cake Auction, through 6 p.m. Friday. The winners will pick up their delectable prizes Saturday between noon and 2 p.m. at Heroes Uniforms and Scrubs, 426 SW Commerce Drive Suite 120.
Wheeler said due to the outpouring of support for the cake auction, a bake sale will also occur Saturday morning at Heroes Uniforms and Scrubs, starting at 10 a.m. Those items will be $20.
Wheeler said the plans for the cake auction began at the start of May when the news of Sapp’s diagnosis went public. From helping with the sheriff’s office’s Fins and Pins fish fry, which also includes a cake auction, Wheeler knew she’d have some cakes available.
She just didn’t know how many.
Or just how supportive Branford and southern Suwannee and Lafayette counties would be for their native daughter, Sapp.
“The ladies from Branford and Hatchbend, right over the river in Lafayette County, there’s three ladies that have gotten about 20 cakes themselves they’re bringing in,” she said. “It’s just about communities coming together really. I think we live in the best place there is. I think if you need help and you can’t get it in Columbia County, you’re not asking the right people. That’s what I think about it. It’s just about helping Taylor.”
The local communities have certainly rallied together to support Sapp. Ashley Wickline, the Lake City Police Department’s community relations coordinator, organized a GoFundMe account to benefit Sapp shortly after the diagnosis came in.
The $10,000 goal was met within 48 hours. As of Wednesday evening, it had raised $15,893.
Those proceeds, as well as those from the cake auction and bake sale, will help offset medical and living expenses for Sapp, who has been in the hospital this week receiving chemotherapy, Wheeler said.
“For me, personally, it’s not about a uniform or a patch on a uniform,” Wheeler said. “It’s a family and taking care of each other…She needs us.
“There’s things that she’s missing, so we have to pick up the slack for her.”