Happiest Birthdays

Halston Van Atta Spreads Birthday Joy to Area Students With Cake Kits

By PARKER KESTON | Intern

For many kids, celebrating their birthday means cake, candles and gifts. However, not every child has access to these resources to make their special day as extraordinary as it should be.

Halston Van Atta—also known as the “Birthday Angel”—began her work creating birthday cake kits for Paul Revere Charter Middle School students in need of an extra dash of specialness in March.

Van Atta—a rising junior—began her involvement in service work at the National Charity League as the vice president of philanthropy with her group. Although she was participating in volunteering, Van Atta was not as involved and active in the community as she wanted to be.

“I ended up leaving the NCL, I started doing my own thing,” Van Atta explained to the Palisadian-Post. “I then began thinking about something that I could do that could genuinely help the community and [kids] my age and [in] my area who need my help. So I was thinking, and I was brainstorming, what’s something simple that I could do that could really impact people’s lives? And I thought of my birthday kit idea.”

Although Van Atta lives in Beverly Hills and is homeschooled, she said she spends a great amount of time in Pacific Palisades and is very involved in the area, as it is special to her.

Van Atta puts together each kit by hand. The boxes consist of a cake mix, a can of carbonated soda, frosting, a spoon, a piece of candy, balloons, candles, party poppers, confetti and an instruction sheet. Van Atta stated the benefits of the soda, as it is a substitute for typical baking items, such as eggs or oil, that a student may not have access to. The only resource a student needs to complete their cake is an oven.

She happily reflected back on the positive feedback she has received from students and administrators at Paul Revere.

“The feedback that I’ve received from the vice principal there, and the responses of the students who have so far gotten my birthday kits, is full of just the most heartwarming messages ever,” Van Atta said. “I’m a very empathetic person, so hearing that feedback makes my heart so warm, and I just want to do more for everyone that I can. It makes me so happy to hear that I’m really impacting people’s lives with something so simple, that really anyone could do.”

Despite the successes and rewards of the program, Van Atta has faced numerous challenges with expanding her program to schools other than Paul Revere.

“I reached out to a handful of schools, and Paul Revere has been the only one so far still interested,” Van Atta explained. “It’s a lot of reminding the schools and calling over and over again, to just, you know, really pitch my idea, because every time I relay it to someone, they tell me it was a great idea. They said they’d love to have it, but afterward I never really get anything back. That’s the hard part of the whole project.”

Nevertheless, Van Atta has found joy in creating the kits and seeing her work develop over time.

“Making the kits honestly is probably my favorite part because I’m a very creative person,” she said. “With every group of kits that I make, I switch it up a little bit. I’ll put a different type of candle, different candy in there, different color scheme, whatever it may be.

“I really enjoy doing that and actually taking them to the schools, seeing my whole project just coming to fruition.”

Planning ahead, Van Atta has goals for the future of her work, including hopefully becoming a nonprofit and getting the kits into additional schools for the 2024-25 academic year.

“I’m going to keep doing this project for a while, that’s my plan,” she remarked. “I want to keep it going for the next few years. In the end, my goal is once I have a handful more schools on board, I’m hoping to start a nonprofit and branch out to more projects like the birthday kit one, just simple things that can really help people.”