When Mary Ellen Raneri of Unity started helping her mother with Facebook livestreams of her cooking, she certainly wasn’t expecting the page to rack up nearly 70,000 fans.
And she definitely wasn’t expecting those fans to help her make all the way to the quarterfinals of “The Greatest Baker,” a nationwide contest to raise money for charity.
Raneri helped her mother, Lucy Pollock, start a Facebook page to livestream her baking and cooking. One of the streams went viral in the early months of the covid-19 pandemic, and when Pollock, 98, died in November 2020, Raneri made the difficult decision to continue with the livestreams.
“It’s really fulfilling to have such a supportive community,” Raneri said.
That community helped propel her all the way to the top 1,000 people in the contest, organized by “Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro, with proceeds benefiting the Andrew McDonough B+ (B Positive) Foundation, which supports research into childhood cancer. It is essentially a popularity contest, and after one free vote, additional votes can be purchased for $1 apiece.
Since it started in November, she’s heard from a great many of the 68,000 followers on the “Baking With Lucy” page.
“A lot of people I don’t even know,” she said. “People from Alabama, people from England. I had a couple of people tell me they set a reminder on their phones to check where I’m at and add votes if I slide down to second in my group.”
On a cold Thursday afternoon, Raneri was keeping busy baking cinnamon buns with raspberry filling. She said the response to the streams, even after her mother’s death, has kept her passionate about carrying on Lucy’s baking.
“What has struck me most is the loyalty of the page’s followers,” she said. “It’s so great to have people commenting and leaving notes of encouragement.”
The winner of “The Greatest Baker” will receive a $10,000 prize and a chance to meet Valastro. For more information, see GreatestBaker.com.
Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.
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