Gail Speckamp of South Palm Beach holds a photo of her late husband, Rudy, a Vietnam veteran, alongside a table of her creations. Speckamp bakes for hospitalized veterans on an almost daily basis as her way of showing appreciation for their sacrifices. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Rich Pollack
For many at the VA hospital in West Palm Beach, the homemade cookies, tarts and occasional pie slices offered up at celebrations and special events serve as a reminder that the veterans are not forgotten.
For Gail Speckamp, making the sweet treats is a reason to get up every morning.
Trapped in her home by the pairing of a bacteria-driven disease and a severe immune deficiency that makes coming in contact with another person perilous, Speckamp is the founder of Baking for Veterans, a nonprofit she started to give back to vets like her husband, who suffered from a Vietnam War-related illness that led to his death in 2017.
“It was meant to be,” she says of her decision right after the pandemic to start baking for vets. “God gives everyone special gifts; mine is baking.”
Baking for veterans, she says, is her way of showing her appreciation for the service they gave to the country but also to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Speckamp is provided with full benefits — including coverage of costly medical treatments — in large part because she is the widow of a Marine who died from war-related injuries.
The decision to start baking for veterans, she said, was born out of her determination to not just sit at home and be unproductive.
“I had to think of something to do in order to stay busy,” she said. “That’s when I came up with the idea of baking.”
Brainstorming with a few of her neighbors at their Dune Deck Condominiums in South Palm Beach, Speckamp arranged to have supplies delivered to her door and baked goods picked up by a gentleman who works at the VA hospital.
Soon the head of volunteer services at the hospital reached out to Speckamp asking her to bake for celebrations and special events, sometimes requesting as many as several hundred baked goods at a time.
That turned out not to be a problem for Speckamp, who is not your average at-home baker. She and her late husband, Rudy, owned a restaurant in Maryland for more than 20 years. Speckamp was the perfect sidekick to Rudy, a master chef who was later recruited to train others.
Speckamp, 73, is quick to reject the label of pastry chef — something she isn’t — but her baking skills bring her pretty close.
Among her creations, some based on Rudy’s recipes, others collected over the years, are Romeo and Juliet cookies with grated parmesan cheese, guava paste and chocolate chips, and chocolate chow mein cookies. She even adds an occasional cheese cake or Key lime pie to the mix.
“They’re all delicious, one after the other,” says neighbor Reinette Saleeby, who serves as taste tester along with one of the staff members at the condo. “Her banana bread is just so delicious and natural.”
All Speckamp’s creations — including dog treats — are made with natural ingredients.
“She makes everything like she is making them for kings and queens,” Saleeby said.
Speckamp doesn’t just bake the sweet creations; she is also a master of packaging. All of her offerings are individually packaged with a label that lists the name of the item and all of the ingredients.
The labels also note that the sweets are made in a “cottage food operation,” meaning they are not made in a commercial kitchen and are low-risk foods not requiring refrigeration.
“She loves to bake and she loves when the veterans love it,” said Saleeby, who has bestowed the moniker “The Queen of Love and Giving” upon her friend and neighbor.
She says that baking does wonders for Speckamp, who could easily spend her days thinking about the challenges ahead. Instead, she thinks about what creation will come up next.
“Baking is helping her in such an extraordinary way,” Saleeby said. “It gives her a purpose.”
Speckamp had been baking for veterans for a year or so before she decided to launch her nonprofit organization to help offset the cost, which she estimated to be about $1,000 a month.
The organization has a website: bakingforveterans.org.
Speckamp says that once she accepted that her ability to leave her condo was limited, she focused on what she could do.
“Now I get up every morning and say, ‘What am I baking today?’”
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