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One such case was when Hummingbird Confections in Callender was left without power to its fridges and freezers full of products and ingredients.

“We had probably 10 different orders for birthdays, we had a fundraiser with over 1,600 cupcakes, and then we had Christmas orders that needed to get started on top of that,” said owner Kaitlyn Stewart. “Our power went out that night and we didn’t get it back for a full 24 hours, so along with not being able to do our orders, we were worried about all our supplies going bad. We had quite a bit of money wrapped up in all that so I was freaking out a bit about that.”

Stewart’s dad, Steve Barrett, brought in a generator to run the fridges and freezers, but she was still left without a usable kitchen to work on orders. Stewart posted on the business’ social media that all orders had to be put on hold and many people were canceling orders.

“We were trying to find somewhere else to do the orders and looking for a commercial kitchen and that just wasn’t looking to be too realistic of an option,” she said. “So my dad was trying to find a larger generator that would be able to run the entire building, so he reached out to his friend Jim Johnson who has a large enough generator and that’s where Jason Woodruff comes into play because my dad called him to see how big of a generator we’d need because he’s the one that did all of our electrical at a bakery. So they got to talking and got the generator from Jim and then they pretty much worked that whole night to get that hooked up and running to be able to run the whole bakery the next day.”

Jason Woodruff owns Woodruff Electric in Moorland.

Stewart said she was thankful that all they lost was time. Once they had power again, it was all hands on deck to get caught up.

“I had a lot of family pitch in to get me kind of caught back up. My dad, mom, and mother-in-law came in to help me get the cupcakes done along with my employee. So we were able to get all those done on time and then I had my brother’s girlfriend came and my sister came and all my nieces came and helped me get cookies cranked out so really, it’s been kind of the whole family getting me back up to where I need to be for all these orders,” she said.

Stewart said she’s almost completely caught up and is so thankful for everyone who offered their help.

“I definitely had a lot of people reach out to help as much as they could. Whether it was to come help make stuff or they offered their kitchens to me. Party Productions reached out and offered their fridge space if I needed it. I mean, it was kind of nice to see how many people are willing to have your back if you need it,” Stewart said.