DC-area pastry chef sweetens the day for front-line workers

Front-line workers at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital pose with their treat box. (Courtesy Samantha Arita)

When your business revolves around making desserts for events, a stay-at-home order could spell disaster. But the owner of one such Fairfax, Virginia, business is now baking treats for workers on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak.

Farozan Jivraj, pastry chef and owner of Cupcake Novelties, packed decorative treat boxes with specialties from snickerdoodle brownies to Oreo jewels and even rainbow pretzel bark.

“I thought this would be a good way to show some kind of appreciation to all these people working so hard on the front lines,” Jivraj said.

Jivraj has made the special deliveries to Inova Fairfax, Sentara in Woodbridge, and Fort Belvoir Community Hospital. She also delivered boxes to several doctors in the D.C. area.

A treat box from Cupcake Novelties. (Courtesy Cupcake Novelties)

“I’ve had some people tell me it brought some sunshine and positivity into their day, so that was really a gratifying part,” Jivraj said.

Jivraj hopes to continue this on a weekly basis, and she added that she’d like to organize a drop-off for first responders as well.

Jivraj said generous donors have pitched in to help, many of them contributing to a GoFundMe campaign she set up that she calls #TreatsForFrontliners.

She also hopes to soon go national with her treats for front-line workers, branching out from the D.C. area.

Although Jivraj hopes her business picks up once social distancing measures are loosened, she doesn’t intend to stop doing her treat boxes anytime soon.

“I just want to continue doing this for as long as I can,” Jivraj said.


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Mike Murillo

Mike Murillo is a reporter and anchor at WTOP. Before joining WTOP in 2013, he worked in radio in Orlando, New York City and Philadelphia.

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