The life of Pi(e) Day
Springville couple hosts delicious math-related celebration
SPRINGVILLE — The secret ingredient is love.
And math. But mostly love.
“It’s about joy,” Mark Bloom said in an interview about Pi(e) Day, an event he and his wife, Belinda, have been hosting for years at their home in Springville.
Pi (π) is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, approximately 3.14159. The formula πr2 (r for radius) is how you find the area of a circle.
The concept of celebrating “Pi Day” on March 14 (3/14, get it?) with pie has gone beyond the classroom and entered more widespread use. But while math says πr2, in the kitchen, pie are round.
The Blooms started Pi(e) Day as a get-together for their Rockwell Collins co-workers. After they moved to Springville, they used March 14, 2015 (3/14/15, get it?) to expand their party and invited everyone in town. As the event grew, so did the crew: Marcie Wells and Darcy McMann are now part of the Pi(e) Day team. Wells invites adults with special needs from Discovery Living, where she works, to stop by.
The Blooms’ preparation for Pi(e) Day starts soon after the previous year’s event and ramps up a week beforehand. Belinda Bloom said she looks to Pinterest for ideas and has more ambitions than time allows. “Marcie and I have big imaginations,” she said.
Mark Bloom, a product manager by trade, has the fruit-pie process down to assembly-line precision. He pours canned pie filling into pie pans, then uses cookie cutters and knives for “visual presentation” on the top crust. The oven has four pies at any given time, and when the bottom two pies come out, the top two go to the bottom, and two more go in.
The most popular pies are apple and strawberry rhubarb. Ingredients for the latter are locally sourced. Apple is so popular that it’s the flavor of the backup store-bought pie in case they run out.
Wells handles nontraditional pies, including “unicorn pie” that’s brightly colored and “dirt pie” with gummy worms. She has a salted caramel turtle pie with a pretzel crust. The most elaborate is a praline cream cheese pie with crumbled-Oreo crust that takes six hours to fully set.
Belinda Bloom has her own pie line, including not-pie pies that use brownie and cookie mixes. Cream cheese is used in “cheesecake” pies. Add cinnamon to sugar cookie mix and boom, snickerdoodle pie. All in all, about three dozen types of pie were offered in 2025.
Over the years, the Blooms have learned lessons. Once, early on, they tried cupcake-sized pies. For a few years, they had pie-eating contests until kids gamed the system a little too much. A strawberry pretzel dessert was too sweet and raspberries were substituted.
Starting every February, Mark posts weekly on a Facebook page for the event. The 2025 theme was “Pie Hard With a Vengeance.” Math and pie puns fly like pies in old movies, although that trope is probably exaggerated.
The Blooms make directional signs for the house and flyers to post around the area. Occasionally, the label cards don’t get immediately associated with their respective pies and the Blooms have to result to a taste test to figure out which red berry is which. The house has to be cleaned and traffic flow established.
Finally, on March 14 or close to it (this year it was Saturday), from 10 AM to 3:14 PM, dozens of guests are welcomed to celebrate Pi Day with pie. Mark described Belinda as “the joy of the party” when that day rolls around. Wells and McMann help serve.
C.J. Flynn of Hiawatha was attending for the first time. He found out from a friend through Cedar Valley Working Families. “I enjoyed the varieties of traditional pies, and also the pizza and chicken pot pie.” Yes, Pi Day includes pizza pies.
“I’ve met so many people from across Iowa because of Pi(e) Day,” Wells said. “If anyone leaves hungry, it’s their own fault.”
The Blooms refuse payment, even as their annual cost has approached $1000 — not even donations. Their goals are simple: to bring people together, keep contact with friends they don’t see that often, and celebrate the joy of food and community.
Pi is irrational, infinite, and transcendent.
Kind of like love.
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In times like these we need these kinds of stories -- so uplifting. It's nice to know there are still people like the Blooms who, though not making national headlines, care about others. Thanks, Jeff, for sharing this.