The cookie covered road to community
Via Carpenter now lives in Ithaca after graduating from Ithaca College (Photo: Aubren Villasenor)
Olivia Carpenter grew up in a working class family in Ohio and according to her there was always someone who was “baking cookies” in the house.
The constant presence of baked treats served as an inspiration. A businesswoman from the start, she started selling cookies in high school as a way to make money to save for college. Her cookie operation made her popular and even led many of her peers to vote her class president — little did she know that later on in life her cookies would help her foster a sense of community in a new place. Nonetheless, the school shut down the business for allegedly siphoning away school lunch revenue and soon enough Carpenter enrolled at Ithaca College.
Gaining courage to learn to let others in
Upon arriving at school, Carpenter faced the challenge of building a home in a new city, a challenge made more difficult by her race.
“When I was 18 and first started college, I was very isolated, I did not talk to people, I kind of shut myself off into my dorm room, and I [didn’t have a roommate],” Carpenter said.
A 2023 Gallup poll said that 20% of black students responded saying they felt discriminated against at one point while in college. In that same poll, 62% of respondents said they have considered dropping out of college. According to USA TODAY the number of black individuals enrolled in a college or university decreased by 22% from 2010 to 2020.
Her connection with the community grew when she started baking again in her junior year of college and sold them at a local cafe in Ithaca. At the time she did not intend on creating a business, but was encouraged to apply for a business competition by one of her professors. Carpenter won the competition which came with “thousands of dollars” of funding which kick started her cookie business.
A community effort
The competition was just the start of the community coming around Carpenter to help her succeed. She connected with Gladys Brangman, owner of the Business Leaders of Colors, who Carpenter said was an amazing resource.
“Working with a business owner like her has been a true joy,” Brangman said. “And one of the things I love about the Business Leaders of Colors is the fact that we are a community of small business owners. That’s what I was looking to do with my organization, is create opportunities for community collaboration.”
In her free time Carpenter paints murals (Photo: Aubren Villasenor)
Today Via’s Cookies has been in operation for three years, and her cookies have been featured at Rev’s Startup Works, the local Ithaca Bakery and Ithaca College cafes. Carpenter said that the community is really what made her business succeed and gave her a new home.
Most of the recipes are from scratch (Photo: Olivia Carpenter)
In terms of sustaining that growth, Carpenter said.
“It’s just a matter of keeping myself relevant and getting my cookies into places where people will buy them consistently,” Carpenter said. “I’m working to get my business to operate without my constantly shouting from the rooftops, ‘Buy my cookies.’”
