For young people in Minneapolis, Cookie Cart offers more than just a job

MINNEAPOLIS— Quentin Moore and Johnny BLESSED walk into the Cookie Cart on Broadway in north Minneapolis and are struck by two things: the smell of fresh cookies and nostalgia.

“It’s a return home for me in many ways,” Moore said.

“When I came through this door, I thought, ‘Oh my God! What’s going on?’ It just brought back memories,” said BLESSED.

Both say memories of one of their first jobs – at the Cookie cart – flowed back.

“We currently have a waiting list of people who want to work at our bakery,” said Cookie Cart President Jacquelyn Carpenter. “We are extremely blessed with employees of today and tomorrow. Not many employers can say that.”

Not many employers focus their workforce on young people either, but that is what the Cookie Cart is about.

“We really help promote the spirit of trust and responsible compassionate responsibility,” Carpenter said. “It’s those soft skills, or those interpersonal traits, that help build a great citizen, neighbor or employee in the future.”

The bakery is a classroom; combining paid work experience with workshops to promote career and leadership development for young people.

“It’s not about what we do today, it’s about where those people will be tomorrow,” Carpenter said.

That morning is seen in the eyes of its alumni: Moore’s servant heart committed to philanthropy and BLESSED’s leadership attitude.

“It’s really about the people,” Moore said. ‘It has taught us so much. You had to be tenacious, you had to be confident. All those things. Perseverance, tenacity, you show up.”

“It’s not just me, it’s all of us. We’re all a team here,” BLESSED said. ‘Let’s make it happen. I don’t think about it, let’s just do it. Let’s go.’

It’s similar skills that teens today are learning through mixing, baking and decorating, discovering they already have the ingredients for success.

“Really, the secret ingredient is the young people,” Carpenter said. “When we help young adults find their inherent worth and reach their full potential, that is joy.”

Joy that will stay with them long after the baking days are over.

“It’s a ripple effect, right? You learn these things fundamentally here, but they impact you as a parent, they impact you as a team leader or employee and then just how you interact with the community in general,” Moore said.

“We are so much more than a bakery,” Carpenter said. “So much more than a first job.”

For more information about Cookie Cart, click here.