

photo: The Depressed Cake Shop

While it might be unnerving to see a cookie cry, these cookie are frowning for a good cause. They’re part of The Depressed Cake Shop, a pop-up bake shop that donates all of its proceeds to mental health efforts.

U.K.-based creative director Emma Thomas cooked up the original concept in August of 2013. Her vision was a bake-sale style fundraiser that sold exclusively gray cakes, cookies and goodies, and brought awareness and funds to mental health causes.

“It’s about challenging stigmas and labels,” Thomas says on the Depressed Cake Shop’s website. “When someone says ‘cupcake,’ you think pink icing and sprinkles. When someone says ‘mental health,’ an equally unimaginative stereotype will pop into most minds. By having gray cakes, we’re challenging the expected and getting people to challenge the labels they put on those who suffer with a mental illness.”

Originally conceived as a one time stint, the project soon took a life of its own after some passionate volunteers decided to bring it to America, Valerie Van Galder, one of the shop’s self-proclaimed “ringleaders,” told The Mighty.

“There’s something about it,” she said. “We kind of couldn’t stop.”

Van Galder, a successful film studio executive in Hollywood, is now one of the “co-conspirators” who’ve continued the shop’s legacy. Her life changed drastically when her father, who had bipolar disorder, had a psychotic break after her mom died of cancer. Her colleagues were understanding when her mom was sick, but her father’s illness was a different story. Without support and feeling unable to open up about her situation, she quit a high-level position to take care of her dad.

It was during this time she discovered The Depressed Cake Shop.