3 Moms Join Icing Smiles After Seeing Firsthand the Impact of a Cake

Icing Smiles Founder Tracy Quisenberry says Icing Smiles is really all about the moms — and no one knows that better than these three mothers who were so moved by the cakes their children received that they joined the Icing Smiles team.

Icing is in Chelsea Boog’s blood. Both of her grandmothers professionally decorated cakes. Instead of playing with dolls, Chelsea worked on her piping-tip technique. In an effort to limit how many sweets were in the house, Chelsea’s mom said the only time she was allowed to bake was if she had somebody to bake for. “So I would make up friends’ birthdays just to have a reason to bake,” Chelsea admits.

Soon, Chelsea would have lots of legit reasons to bake: After earning a bachelor’s degree in marketing and communications, she enrolled in culinary school and studied baking and pastry arts. “I love the art,” she says. “I love making things beautiful and seeing people’s reactions.”

She worked in the industry creating desserts at the Inn at Perry Cabin and other country clubs and restaurants on the Eastern Shore and launched her own business, Chelsea’s Creative Confections. She found Icing Smiles in 2012 through a friend and was thrilled to combine her passion for giving back with her love of decorating cakes. “I grew up in Girl Scouts,” Chelsea says. “I love giving back. I get a lot of joy out of it. I immediately signed up.”

From Sugar Angel to Medical Mom

She served a few Dream Cakes before her first son, Vincent, was born in 2016. For three weeks, Chelsea and her husband were home with a happy, healthy baby. But then he stopped breathing in his sleep. Vincent was diagnosed with several congenital heart defects, underwent multiple open heart surgeries, and passed away at 10 weeks old. For Vincent’s first birthday, Chelsea planned a party and fundraiser for a local nonprofit that raises awareness of congenital heart defects and provides assistance to families and children. 

“I was honored to do it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was exhausting,” Chelsea says. “It was very tiring. I wanted there to be a birthday cake. I wanted it to be a party. I wanted Vincent’s life to be celebrated.”

Icing Smiles offers memorial cakes for families who have experienced the loss of a qualified medical child within the past two years, so Chelsea submitted an application. Not only was the cake impressive, but the impact of the cake rippled far past Chelsea and her husband. 

“I was also able to see the ricochet effect,” she says. “We had hundreds of people at that birthday party. Each one was touched by the cake. It’s so much more than just a cake.”

Continuing Vincent’s Legacy

In 2019, Chelsea participated in Icing Smiles’ Buttercream Ball, both as a baker and the keynote speaker, and won with Ella Edwards and their candy-filled creation. And her involvement within the organization kept growing – “Tracy has a wonderful way of voluntolding people,” Chelsea jokes. Chelsea had recently earned her Master of Business Administration and had experience working for nonprofits, and in 2020, she officially joined the Icing Smiles administrative team as the development coordinator.  

“It’s my lifelong goal, motivation, and passion to carry on Vincent’s legacy,” says Chelsea, who now has two children, Makenzie and Marshall. “I find it important to live in honor of his memory and live a life he’d be proud of. I’m so passionate about the Icing Smiles’ story and what we do for families. I use my passion for what we do and what we are working toward to fuel my fire for raising more money to grow the organization to meet our goal of becoming a household name.”

When Normal Isn’t Normal

Kris Koehler thought her 14-year-old son just needed glasses. “He was having trouble seeing,” she says. “That’s normal, right?”

But it wasn’t normal. After many trips to specialists, Ian was diagnosed with optic nerve hypoplasia, which can result in full vision loss. Currently, Ian can see perfectly fine through his peripheral vision, but when he looks straight ahead, everything he sees is black and blurry, his mom says. “He does everything a normal teenage boy would do, except he can’t drive and he will probably never be able to drive.”

At first, Kris didn’t think to apply to organizations that offer grants or wishes for kids with critical or chronic illnesses. “I was like, there’s no way they’re going to do anything for him. This is not life-threatening,” she says. “But it’s a chronic condition.”

A Birthday to Remember

When Kris learned about Icing Smiles through Dream Factory, she was floored. “As a pastry chef, instantly my eyes got really big,” she recalls. “Cake decorating was not my thing. If you want bread, if you want croissants, call me. If you want a cake decorated, I’m not your person.”

For Ian’s 16th birthday, he received a Harry Potter-themed cake. Every single element was edible, from the wand to the sorting hat to the golden snitch. “It was gorgeous,” Kris says. “We all sat there looking at it. No one wanted to cut into it. I’m pretty sure we saved the golden snitch and the sorting hat for at least a year.”

The cake was special, but it was how the cake made her feel that was long lasting: “You don’t ever want to learn that your kid has something wrong with them and that you’re never going to be able to fix it. To be able to do something special for him that was just for him and it wasn’t for anybody else, that also made people celebrate with him, was really … tears are coming down my eyes right now. It was really nice. It was soul-filling.”

Paying It Forward

Ian’s party was on Saturday. On Monday morning, Kris emailed Icing Smiles and asked what she could do to help. She spent a few years volunteering as an eligibility processor. 

“I’d get up every morning: How many cakes can I approve today?!,” she recalls. “It was such a neat thing. There was this kid, and I was able to approve this cake today! I think it means a lot to people who have something to do with the organization because you know what it entails to get that cake to the child. There’s a whole process that’s involved. Crossing those Ts and dotting those Is and making sure that kid is able to have their cake and eat it, too.”

A Birthday Miracle

Lauren Smith was sitting in her son’s hospital room. They’d been there for over 30 days, and Xavier’s eighth birthday was fast approaching. She couldn’t stomach the thought of celebrating from the hospital. 

Lauren Googled “special needs birthday,” and up popped Icing Smiles. “At that time, he was gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, so I didn’t think we would ever find a baker,” recalls Lauren, who lives in Bradenton, Florida. 

But Icing Smiles did. On Aug. 23, 2013, Xavier received a baseball-themed cake — no gluten, eggs, or dairy in sight. “It was the first food my son was allowed to eat by mouth in four years,” Lauren says. “He thought it was amazing.”

So Much More Than a Cake

Xavier received another cake the following year, and that’s when Lauren went on the Icing Smiles website again — not to request a cake but to see how she could give back. “From there on out, it was all in,” she says. 

Lauren started as the cake scheduler in Florida. She’s volunteered in baker outreach. Today, she’s Icing Smiles’ southern regional coordinator. “I do a little bit of everything,” she says. 

Her favorite part of the job is speaking with families: “A family just wrote a long email to thank me for spending an hour just listening to her on the phone. Just having someone outside of the medical office listen to these families means so much to them. That’s what I love and what I do with icing Smiles — because I’ve been in their shoes.”

As a former medical social worker and as a mom of four, three of whom have complex medical conditions, Lauren understands the importance of joy during treatment for childhood degenerative illnesses. She speaks often with Sugar Angels about the impact they have on families. 

“This is so much more than a cake,” she tells them. “You are giving the family and the child so many memories. You can put such a labor of love into making that cake, but it’s not the cake you’re delivering. You’ll get an email from a family that’s like, ‘This cake is beautiful, but I have to tell you how special the interaction with the baker was and that I saw my child smile when I haven’t seen them smile like that in forever.’ That’s what the child is going to talk about. That’s what the family’s going to talk about.”

Bake a Difference

​​There are so many ways to get involved with Icing Smiles, from baking or attending an event to referring a family. Learn more about how you can help create more smiles today.