FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 9, 2023
Contact: For further information and all media inquiries, please fill out this form and someone will get back to you: http://bit.ly/jenangelpress
Official Updates and Statement from Family and Friends of Jen Angel, Oakland Community Member and Bakery Owner in Critical Condition
OAKLAND, CA–Oakland baker, small business owner, social justice activist, and community member Jen Angel is on life support after being severely injured Monday in an attempted robbery. According to her medical team, Jen is unlikely to recover.
Jen’s enormous community of friends and loved ones have shown an outpouring of support since Monday. Within less than 24 hours of the set-up of a GoFundMe fundraising page, Jen’s extensive community of friends and loved ones has already raised over $88,000 to support her family, community, and continuation of her business. Those who wish to donate to the effort can do so here. Angel Cakes remains open for business and is taking orders here. Buying gift cards for future use is the best way to keep this community institution afloat at this time.
Angel, 48, founded Angel Cakes in 2008, baking cupcakes, planning weddings and catering events for the bay area community. In 2016, Angel Cakes opened a storefront bakery at 745 5th Street in Oakland, located in the historic Gingerbread House, a long-time Oakland staple restaurant that served the neighborhood from the 1970s until 2007.
Jen Angel was born in 1975 and raised in suburban Cleveland, Ohio. Jen is a long-time activist and organizer for social justice. Prior to starting Angel Cakes, Jen founded the social justice event production organization Aid and Abet. Jen was the co-founder and publisher of Clamor Magazine, a bi-monthly alternative magazine published from 1999 to 2006. Jen published a pamphlet about Clamor, geared toward strengthening progressive media institutions, called Becoming the Media: A Critical History of Clamor Magazine (PM Press 2008). She remains deeply involved in organizing work for media justice and building a better world.
A group of dear and trusted friends of Jen are working under the name Family and Friends of Jen Angel to organize support and make important decisions during this difficult time. The group respectfully requests space and discretion.
For all media requests of Family and Friends of Jen Angel, please fill out the form at http://bit.ly/jenangelpress
Quotes from Family and Friends:
“Jen makes cupcakes, and Jen makes community. Often those intersect, in her life and in the lives of those who know and love her. Jen has worked hard to build a small business in Oakland, and to do so in a way that treats her employees as full humans, including providing a living wage. She paid herself last. She gave away cupcakes to community groups wherever she went. Jen was at the bakery every day. She taught herself how to decorate cakes. On Friday nights she would invite friends to hang out with her while she worked late and decorated wedding cakes,” says Tobias Smith, friend of Jen Angel.
“Jen cultivates community everywhere she goes. Her cupcakes, her organizing work, and every other element of her life have always been an invitation into the beautiful world she hopes to build, where everyone is valued, cared for, and celebrated,” says Pete Woiwode, friend of Jen Angel.
“All of us who know Jen are touched to see the way her community is responding. Most of the people in Oakland who experience the type of violence Jen experienced are young Black and Brown people who do not receive the level of focus, attention, or support that Jen has. Jen and those of us who love her want a world where everyone who experiences harm gets to experience support and healing, and people who cause harm are supported to have what they need to change instead of getting locked away,” says Emily Harris, friend of Jen Angel and Co-Director of Programs at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.
“Over the last 30 years, Jen Angel has been a visionary influence and pioneering participant within multiple movements and sub-cultures that have significantly informed and shaped our world in the here and now, from punk rock and anarchism in the 1990’s, through the Global Justice and anti-war movements of the early 2000’s to Occupy in 2011 and contemporary fights for racial justice, climate justice, economic justice and beyond,” says Ryan Fletcher, friend of Jen Angel.
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