Things To Do In SW Florida

When the Indiana-based Cake Bake Shop opens its new restaurant and sweet shop at Walt Disney World’s BoardWalk later this year, most of the towering, glittery confections will be produced offsite at a commercial bakery in Osceola County.

The company, led by founder Gwendolyn Rogers, just completed its new 31,200-square-foot commercial bakery within the Trinity Industrial Park just off Poinciana Boulevard, according to a report in GrowthSpotter. It’s located about a mile south of the Poinciana SunRail station.

Rogers announced plans for the Disney Boardwalk location in 2022, and the company has been renovating the former ESPN Club building for more than a year to create a full-service restaurant and separate quick- service bake shop. The Cake Bake Shop has been featured multiple times in Oprah’s list of “Favorite Things” and has partnerships with William-Sonoma and Tiffany & Co., to name a few. This will be the company’s third location and its largest to date.

Rogers bought the Osceola property in 2021 and started the work on the commercial bakery before she had closed the deal for the BoardWalk location. It was an instinctual move and the first concrete step in realizing her vision for a restaurant that will introduce her brand and flavors to visitors from around the world. read more

If you’re a high school senior now applying for college, you should already be in the process of applying for financial aid. In fact, as acceptances start to roll in, the amount of each school’s financial aid package might be the deciding factor for which institution you and your family choose.

Typically, your family would have filled out the FAFSA form — the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — last fall. That form is used not only for federal student loans but also for the grants and other aid offered by many schools and states.

This year, the new version of the FAFSA for 2024-25 just became available on Dec. 31 at StudentAid.gov. The new version was delayed for three months, as the government revised the form and also the aid formula, hoping to make it easier to file. But those changes resulted in significant delays.

And when the roll-out finally came, the website couldn’t handle the sudden onslaught of families trying to fill out the form. The result has been long waits and disconnects. Now a “waiting room” has been created online in an attempt to control the volume of applications. Your best chance to get through is to try early in the morning or late at night. read more