WDBJ7 Roanoke News and Weather NRV Lynchburg Danville | Cakes already baking for annual strawberry festival in Roanoke

Cakes already baking for annual strawberry festival in Roanoke

Know how to bake a strawberry shortcake? How about 12,000 strawberry shortcakes? Some local moms and dads learned how Friday.

It starts with tons of butter, hundreds of pounds of flour, Lots of mixing, pounding, cutting, and some heat.

It's all about hands-on preparation for Roanoke Community School's 29th Annual Strawberry Festival set for May 1 and 2. The school is hoping to raise more than $100,000 from the cake.

"It's a real community effort. Our parents put in about 2,500 volunteer hours. And all of our proceeds go to the school to help keep our tuition down," says Carissa South, Director of Developing and Marketing for the festival.

And its not just moms in the kitchen, dads are getting into the mix too.

"Well it's fun, the occupational hazard I guess you'd say of doing this," says volunteer Adam Honeycutt.

Meanwhile, some of the mothers say they're taking out their aggression.

"Nobody walks out of here who's not covered in flour. You'll find it in your hair. You'll find it on your shoes," says volunteer Mary Potter.

After they cool, the cakes are frozen until the festival where they'll be topped off with 6,000 flats of fresh strawberries, and paired with many more.