HOUSTON – The bake Shop at All Things Acres in Brenham bakes some pretty special pies. One pie in particular is the Mo Pie U Bourbon Chocolate Pecan pie, which is a big piece of the pie for a very important cause.
“What I like to tell people about Mo Pie U is it is a delicious pie, but the pie is not what makes it special. What makes it special is the story, and that is, we provide tuition assistance for kids who have lost a parent to cancer,” said Mo Pie U founder Mark Devlin.
“When you’re thinking about, ‘hey, what’s the perfect gift for Christmas or Thanksgiving, or for a client?’...send out a pie with a purpose, you’ve literally just helped send a kid to college.
Someone like Maddie Glenn, who lost her Dad to kidney cancer.
“We were told that he had four years to live, but he only ended up living for nine months. It really saddened me to lose my Dad at 17 because that’s never something you expect to experience at such a young age. He wasn’t there for my graduation or 18th birthday, but I was like, I need to make something out of myself...Everything happens for a reason. And I’m a strong believer in that,” Glenn told Houston Life.
Without her Dad, Maddie and her family struggled to find a way to pay for Maddie to attend college.
Glenn applied for a Mo Pie U scholarship after learning about the organization while watching KPRC 2. “They were really touched by my story,” said Glenn of Devlin and Mo Pie U.
Mo Pie U has been helping Glenn through school for three semesters now, and she said she is only able to stay in at college because of the scholarship funds. Paying it forward, Glenn volunteers for Mo Pie U, helping spread the word so others can benefit from the scholarships.
Devlin used to bake all the Mo Pie U pies in his kitchen at home until demand got too high. Then, Tara Royer Steele and Rick Steele of Royers Pie Haven stepped in to help by offering the space and resources available in their commercial kitchen at the Bake Shop in Brenham.
Before having access to the Bake Shop, Devlin was able to make around 70 pies a season, and baking all these pies took around three weeks. “He didn’t work at his moneymaking job while he did it,” said Rick Steele.
The Royer Steeles have helped Devlin keep the cost of making the pies down, which has increased the money raised for the Mo Pie U non-profit. In addition, Devlin can bake a whole lot more pies.
“The last couple of years, we’ve averaged about a thousand pies per year. Our goal for this year is 2000, and I think we’re going to blow through that number, thanks to Houston Life!” said Devlin.
The Royer Steeles love being part of a cause that helps encourage and equip families during a challenging time.
“For kids to be able to go to college, for families, to just give them a little bit of hope and excitement. I love watching that in our kids. So I know that the families feel the same way,” said Tara Royer Steele.
Teamwork makes the dream work at Mo Pie U. As word of the mission spreads, more partners are jumping on board to help. Which is how Halle Garrus from Edrington got involved.
“I got into the mix at a whiskey tasting down in Kemah. I met Mark and got to try some of these amazing pies. And then he told me the story about how he got started. I immediately wanted to be involved. And so he told me about these pies, and I was like, Well, we’ve got some great bourbon and think you should be using our bourbon in your pies,” said Garrus.
Beyond donating bourbon, which significantly reduces the Mo Pie U production costs, Edrington donated $7,000 upfront to the scholarship fund.
The new bourbon in Mo Pie U’s chocolate Pecan Bourbon pie is Edrington’s Wyoming Whiskey. Aged in new charred American oak, it offers that typical bourbon flavor people expect from an American whiskey with “lots of vanilla, which is fantastic for pie,” said Garrus.
Glenn said losing her father “changed me as a person. I think I had to grow up a lot faster than most kids my age. But it’s put a different perspective on my life. I’m able to share my story with other people now.”
And because of that, others who, like Glenn, have lost a parent to cancer can find hope thanks to the help of Mo Pie U.
To order a GREAT pie this holiday season or for any celebration, follow the link to MoPieU.org