Last week, 8days.sg reported on a home bakery called Upcakes, which sells Mao Shan Wang chocolate cakes. It was started by ex-engineer Aaron Lee, 39, and his wife Elaine Lee, 38, who works as a dentist. They founded their biz with the hope to eventually pass it to their four and a half year-old son Andrew, who was born with Down Syndrome (Upcakes was named as a “contrast” to his condition). I was thinking of something for my son to do, says Aaron, who also has daughter Essa Grace, six. Husband-and-wife run their bakery like a “social enterprise”, where they employ individuals with Down Syndrome ad-hoc to help out with tasks like folding boxes for cakes.

Aaron and Elaine’s story touched our readers, some of whom ordered cakes as a show of support (we have tried their MSW choc cake, and the unusual pairing surprisingly works). And business has spiked; Aaron tells us he sold 300 cakes in three days since the article came out.

As a way of paying the public support forward, Aaron has started “another initiative from this episode”. He is using proceeds from the cake sales to financially help parents who are expecting or have recently given birth to babies with Down Syndrome. Each child would receive aid of up to $2,000 to “defray medical costs”. According to Upcakes’ website, the couple explains: “We understand how it feels to bear a child with DS. Much has been given to us, and now, [we’d] like to give back to you.”

Aaron elaborates that the initiative is to help lower-income parents who have difficulty bearing the costs of raising a child with DS. They can utilise the $2,000 allocated to them “anytime” they’re struggling with a medical bill. “They have to submit documentation as a matter of accountability. But from our experience, the $2,000 will be used up in the first year [after the child's birth],” Aaron says.

He cites expenses like heart consultations, which typically cost at least $50 a session, and could go up to $1,000 with further heart scans or sleep studies. This is on top of seeing a range of other specialists like endocrinologists and orthopaedic doctors, as kids with DS are prone to developing hormonal and joint issues. Aaron recalls, “One of our friends has a child with DS who had two heart surgeries, and had to be tube-fed for a year. I believe the bill would have been $50k to $100k, though the government helps with some of that. But the first year was a horror show for the parents’ finances.”

Other than financial help, the couple will also offer prenatal counselling resources for parents of kids with DS. “We’re pro-life people, and a baby is a life. So we do early intervention and tell them what to expect. A lot of things you read on the internet is about fear,” says Aaron. He also quickly clarifies that he’s “not trying to compete” with organisations dedicated to helping the DS community, as he had wanted to “give back in my own way”. He intends to take on around 30 beneficiaries under the initiative, though it's an estimation. He reckons, You never know. Some [people] might donate too, and there might be more, or fewer, babies with DS being born [in the future]. We're open to seeing where things lead to.

After his story appeared on 8days.sg, Aaron says he started receiving messages and e-mails from other parents with kids with DS. “One parent contacted me on Instagram to say her kid with DS is now one and a half years-old. She was also very scared at the beginning, but now she’s enjoying life with her kid. Another parent said she’s 23 weeks along, and the child has a 99 per cent chance of being born with Down Syndrome. She had heard a lot of horror stories,” he shares. “I think the fear peaks at birth and the initial period following that, but once you cross that line, you’re fine.”

He’s also working on letting peeps with DS tag along with his cake delivery drivers as a part-time job. “I asked my delivery drivers today, ‘You ready to bring them for a little joy ride and let them deliver orders to the door?’ They said okay,” he laughs. The young ‘staff’ work for about one to two hours each time. “Kids with DS have very short attention spans,” says Aaron. He plans to continue his financial aid initiative indefinitely: “As long as the business can survive, we’ll keep carrying on.”

For more info on Upcakes’ charity initiative and cakes, go to www.upcakes.sg.

PHOTOS: AARON LEE/ YIP JIEYING