It rained a lot in Phoenix yesterday, and at least 150 volunteers experienced that rain first hand while building a playground for Riverbend Preparatory Academy in Laveen. Fairytale Brownies team members were there helping KaBOOM! and Home Depot provide a safe place to play for the elementary school students who attend Riverbend. Despite the wetness, the playground was finished by the afternoon.


Kurt Warner, quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, dropped by to help with the build as well. He worked on a rock climbing wall, mixed cement and planted flowers in the newly built planters.

Then he signed autographs for the volunteers in the school gym. Volunteers munched on Fairytale Brownies while waiting in line for their autographs.


Fairytale Brownies' co-owner Eileen Spitalny worked on the mulch crew with the mulch master (someone who's been on the mulching crew before), who is pictured above. In fact, this particular mulching master was a volunteer at the last Phoenix KaBOOM! build a few weeks ago but missed out on her gourmet brownie. We made sure she tried one this time. Below is a photo of Eileen in action.

See? I told you it was rainy!
After mulching, Eileen waited in line to visit with Kurt, too.

Kurt even signed Eileen's Fairytale Sprite!

That brownie won't be eaten any time soon...
Lian Mah was KaBOOM!'s project manager. She flew from Washington, D.C. hoping to have better weather than what she left.

Although the Phoenix weather disappointed her, she DID get to visit our Fairytale Brownies bakery and have a tour with Eileen.
By the way, I wasn't officially on the mulch crew this time. I got to be a cement worker and help lay the forms for the playground. I thought I was pretty sturdy until I tried to lift an 80 lb sack of cement. I really need to start lifting more brownie boxes!

The buzz going on here at Fairytale Brownies is huge this week. We are all so excited about this Friday because we are expecting a TV crew from The Food Networks "Unwrapped" show to shoot an episode featuring Fairytale Brownies. The premise of the show is 'comfort food' and they'll be shooting the bakers baking our gourmet brownies from scratch, interviewing our founders David Kravetz and Eileen Spitalny, filming our shipping team packing and getting gifts ready for FedEx shipment, and showcasing our retail store that is open to the public.
 
From the show, we are hoping to remind people that Fairytale Brownies are great as Holiday Gifts and are easy and simple to Order Brownies! As soon as we have an air date for the show, we'll pass the word along to you!

~ Hilary

Veterans' Day is upon us, and I thought I would take a minute to thank all of our veterans, past and present, on behalf of everyone here at Fairytale Brownies. We love our troops, so much so that we even have a bulletin board in our office overflowing with all the notes and photos we've received over the years from the soldiers we support.



Not only do we offer free shipping on any gourmet brownie gifts sent to an APO/FPO military address, but we are also part of the Soldiers' Angels Bakers Group, sending delicious Belgian chocolate brownies to our deployed troops each and every month. Our Customer Service Team also writes letters and sends care packages to soldiers to remind them someone is thinking of them.

If you're looking for the perfect gift for your favorite veteran, try sending one of our Patriotic brownie gifts to show your appreciation for their service to our country.
 
Thank you veterans, for being our heroes!
~Kari

We are starting to get busier as the holidays gets closer. Today the Shipping Team was busy at work building the Fairytale Tower gift to fulfill orders that have been placed.  We thought that the assembly line of towers looked like a toy shop (by the way, the picture doesn't really do it justice, it's much more impressive in person).
Check it out:





The end of the assembly line here is where the gifts get packed into Fed Ex boxes and get shipped to those lucky gift recipients about receive a yummy gift of gourmet brownies!


We hope you enjoyed this 'behind the scenes' look into the Fairytale Brownies warehouse. We love to hear customer feedback, so don't be shy and leave us a comment :o)

~ Hilary

This week Fairytale Brownies had a Corporate Gifts showcase in our retail store for all of our Corporate Clients and Distributors. We showcased our new customizing options and our new custom packaging. We also sampled Fairytale Brownies, Fairytale Cocoa and Fairytale Coffee as well as our newest item, Fairytale Truffles! It was a great success and we had a great time visiting with all of our Corporate Clients and Distributors. Here is a picture from our event. Also, check out the background through the windows! Those are our bakers baking our delicious gourmet brownies!



~ Brandie

My name is Kim Silva, and I am the Operations Team Leader at Fairytale Brownies.  I will be celebrating my 15th year of service with Fairytale Brownies this coming February, and I am so thankful to have been part of a true "Fairytale".  During my time with Fairytale Brownies I have seen many changes, but we have always stayed true to our philosophy of using only the finest and freshest ingredients, including Callebaut Belgian Chocolate, farm-fresh eggs and creamery butter.
 
This week we were fortunate enough to have Patrick Peeters (Technical Advisor - Callebaut Chocolate Academy) visit with our baking team to consult on our new brownie truffles, which are brownie morsel pieces covered in decadent Callebaut chocolate.  Patrick was able to give our team great advice on how best to work with the enrobing machine that covers the brownies in chocolate, as well as how to work with the chocolate itself, which can be extremely sensitive.  The Fairytale Truffles are one of the newest additions to the Fairytale family of products and we anticipate them being a huge success, who can resist a Fairytale Brownie coated in only the finest Belgian chocolate!   

~ Kim