A GROUP of volunteer bakers is helping to provide free homemade birthday cakes for children whose families might struggle to provide one.

Free Cakes for Kids Northwich – which operates across both Northwich and Winsford – was set up in November by Anna Sykes, helping families in need make their child's birthday extra special.

Anna is now appealing for charities, community groups or other family and children services to get in touch with any referrals.

She said: "Free Cakes for Kids (freecakesforkids.org) is a national organisation with branches all across the UK.

"Northwich and Winsford did not have a branch of its own so I set one up to serve the communities here.

"We only work on referrals, so are in the process of reaching out across Northwich and Winsford to charities, community groups, food banks, schools, churches, GPs, health visitors etc, who work with children and families and might know of families that would enjoy a personalised, homemade birthday cake to make a child's birthday extra special.

"Once they have identified a family, we have a request form and they just fill in their details with the flavours they like, the age of the child and the theme they want.

"We have only made three birthday cakes so far but we are hoping to provide a service across Northwich and Winsford that will help lighten the load of families and make sure that no child goes without a birthday cake."

The group has 18 volunteer bakers who provide the ingredients and give up their time for free to make the cakes.

Anna added that Northwich Community Support and Asda have already been generous in offering donations to help the bakers in their efforts.

"We're very keen to get cracking," Anna said.

"And ultimately we'd love to expand as we've seen other groups have started making cakes for older people too.

"But at the moment we're just focusing on children's cakes."

You can visit facebook.com/groups/296963412279898/ where you can find more information about the group's activities.

To ask any questions or make referrals to Free Cakes for Kids Northwich, email freecakesforkidsnorthwich@gmail.com.