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For several weeks now, Ely resident Susan Laine has been celebrating essential workers and businesses by spreading her message of love with LovELY cakes. 

“You realize they’re out there, fighting and working and trying to keep things together while we’re all at home trying to figure out what our next move is,” she said. “They need to be celebrated, they need to have love, people need to know that everybody has their back right now.”  

Laine’s campaign started when she decided to hold a cake giveaway contest for an essential business or service. Soon, people were contacting her and telling her they wanted to donate cakes. 

“My schedule went from having nothing to do to making three to four cakes every single day,” said Laine, who quit her bank job last year to begin her own full-time cake-decorating business. “My whole entire month of April, I made 53 cakes.” 

She recently surpassed 85 lovELY cakes — and has also branched out to nearby Tower. Her message there? Tower Power. 

“It’s the same idea, the power of love,” Laine said. “People coming together to do something with love in their hearts. Tower is being powered by the love of its employees.” 

Laine has kept safety at the forefront, sanitizing everything that comes into her house, and rarely leaves home. She doesn’t deliver the cakes nor does she allow people to come inside her home for pickup; she arranges for it to be done outside.

Her message of love has taken on a new urgency in the last week — Ely has confirmed at least one COVID-19 case. 

“If ever there needed to be a time for lovELY cakes, the time is now,” she said.  

Anyone who is interested in donating or requesting a cake can 

. All monetary donations go toward supplies. 

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Nancy Yang

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Ely resident Susan Laine has been celebrating essential workers by spreading a sweet message of love. “They need to be celebrated, they need to have love, people need to know that everybody has their back right now,” she said. 

Daily dose of sweetness: All you need is a lovELY cake

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