Youth-run BIPOC business creates healthy desserts in north Minneapolis

Yahoo

28-02-2025

The Brief
30 young entrepreneurs of color as young as 12 years old run a dessert business in North Minneapolis called Green Garden Bakery.
The bakery grows vegetables in its community garden and bakes them into healthy vegetable-based desserts.
To ensure everyone is able to eat healthy, the desserts are "pay-what-you-want" and 1/3 of the proceeds are reinvested back into the community.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A vegetable-based dessert business in north Minneapolis is booming and kids are the employees who are gardening, baking, and taking orders.
Green Garden Bakery, also known as GGB, started 10 years ago. It has been a resource for the community for fresh foods and desserts in what's considered a food dessert.
What we know
In 2014, youth in the Heritage Park neighborhood worked to raise money for a friend who was injured in a car crash. They came up with the idea to sell desserts as a way to show their support.
That's when Green Garden Bakery was born. Its mission is and always has been about building and supporting people in the community.
"They surprise us a lot with just how eager they are to work," youth culinary manager Shakyira Jackson said. "They always have a lot of ideas."
For years now, kids have been taking cooking, gardening and nutrition classes for youth in Heritage Park. This has given them the unique opportunity to work in a business setting and learn about access to healthy food options.
"By the time they're in high school, they're able to speak in front of a crowd, they're able to lead meetings by themselves so a lot of them already have those skillsets," Shakyira said.
A third of the bakery's profits are re-invested back into the business, a third is divided to pay employees, and a third is donated back into the neighborhood to a charity of their choice.
Down to the packaging, GGB keeps the business eco-friendly. Available desserts include items like lemon zucchini cake, chocolate beet cake, jalapeno chocolate chip cookies, East African spiced sweet potato donuts and more.
GGB uses an east African tea spice for the African spiced sweet potato donuts. The recipe was provided by someone in the community.
The impact
The adults are there just to support and oversee operations.
Kids are split into crews and levels. Most want to work their way up to the executive level which gives them the opportunity to travel to different conferences and handle communications like business emails — a much bigger responsibility.
There's also a community crew, sales crew, baking crew, garden crew, and art royalty crew.
"Youth can let their voices be heard in the business," 15-year-old Sarod Williams said.
Williams is a part of the executive team. He got involved through summer programs and, when he turned 13, he became a youth entrepreneur at GGB.
"It's not something that gets handed out to a lot of people, so honestly it makes me feel like I have an opportunity," he said.
After about 4.5 years at GGB, 17-year-old Nate is also a part of the executive team. He's the sales lead who manages all of the sales emails.
"We're busy all the time," he said while washing dishes.
Nate loves the idea of being in his community while supporting his community at the same time. His hope is that GGB helps the community grow, and even open another location in Minneapolis.
Not only that, but Nate recognized how much the business has helped him mature and become more vocal than he was when he started.
"At first it was really challenging because I was shy," he says.
He has dreams of attending college and studying computer science and engineering.
His co-worker Raija Medeiros, 15, has big dreams too. She would like to work in finance and, right now, she has quite a head-start.
Raija is the chief financial officer of GGB.
"I handle how we make our money and where our money goes. Right now, I'm working on redoing our net worth," she says.
Year after year, starting at the age of 9, Raija applied to work at GGB before she finally got her chance at 13.
"I feel like working with GGB gives me a lot of opportunities," she said. "I feel like it gives me purpose. If I wasn't here right now, I would be in my bed playing Mortal Kombat."
Most of the youth agree. They think about what they might be doing if it wasn't for GGB. They've learned the true meaning of hard work, dedication and compassion.
Most recently, the youth supported a child going through cancer treatment and started a neighborhood beautification initiative.
How it works
Since the younger entrepreneurs are in school during the day, some youths work once or twice a week. The executive/leadership team works Monday-Friday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Their weekdays are spent working on a variety of projects like social media content, bakery prep work, meetings and more.
GGB has what it calls "opportunity youth" which is for 18–24-year-olds who help run the business.
The storefront at 815 Sumner Court is open a couple of days a week and, while closed, GGB also has bakery items available at farmers' markets.
GGB prefers employees to live in North Minneapolis, but the business has partnerships where it is able to give youth in the surrounding areas an opportunity to participate.
The storefront is open 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
If you would like to volunteer or partner for a community event, you can email entrepreneurship youth manager Layne Benton here.