FAIRHOPE — You can have your cake and help others, too.

Each year, a team at Eastern Shore Medical Alliance helps ferry a U-Haul filled with stacks of freshly boxed king cake from Louisiana to Fairhope.

The nonprofit, comprised of doctors and their spouses, sells the king cakes to raise money for three Baldwin County charities: Baldwin Family Village, Under

His Wing and the Alabama Free Clinic.

The fundraiser arrives just before the beginning of each Mardi Gras season and after 25 years has become as much of a local tradition as the festive balls and parades.

Lacee Minney, this year's king cake chair, said the sale has grown by hundreds of boxes each year. Last year, the group sold 1,750 cakes and has a goal of 1,900 for the 2023 season.

The cakes are prepared by Randazzo's Camellia City Bakery in Slidell, Louisiana, one of the most popular crafters of the sweet, cream cheese-filled delights for locals and visitors alike. The bakery has been kneading, cutting, braiding and molding each piece of dough for every king cake by hand since 1965.

Minney said not only are the cakes, which are nearly a foot across, delicious, but the family owned bakery makes the task of ferrying thousands of cakes across the Gulf Coast a breeze.

"We drop a truck off Saturday night, and they fill it up by Sunday morning," Minney said.

Over the years, some have tried to sway the group to try another baker, but Minney assures crowds they have taste tested enough cakes to know.

"We've tried lots of them, and we can't stop using Randazzo's," she said, laughing about having the sweetest job in the nonprofit. "Plus, she gives us a good discount so we can raise more money."