A small home business started as a way for an 8-year-old to raise money for a new bike made waves in Pueblo’s baking scene, earning a top-three spot in the latest Best of Pueblo competition.
It all started last summer when Kennadi Garcia, a student at Villa Bella Expeditionary Elementary School, told her father, Christapher Garcia, that she wanted a new bike. He suggested that they find a way for him to earn a little money to help pay.
“Kennadi and I like to work together in the kitchen, so I suggested that we make cookies to sell to friends and family to earn some money,” said Garcia.
Through the power of social media, she started posting about Kennadi’s fundraiser and “it just blew up,” she said. Before they knew it, he had $100 to put toward his new bike and the whole exercise “turned into what it is now a business,” he said.
Garcia himself is not new to the business having been a DJ, special planner and marketer for 15 years. Still, he admitted that he “didn’t think” that the father-daughter relationship “would become a thing, but we saw an opportunity to do something together.”
Through the Colorado Department of Public Health, they are using the Cottage Goods Act which allows them to bake cookies at home and sell them directly to the public. As interest in Kennadi’s Kookies grows, they are now working on a food license so they can sell more cookies.
“It’s grown more than we expected. In the beginning Kennati said, ‘Why don’t we send one cookie to everyone in America?’ and I knew we couldn’t do that, but it became our goal to send cookies to all 50 states,” Garcia said.
And again, with the help of social media, in just 75 days, they achieved that goal, marking each new state on a map as they exported cookies.
“With the overwhelming response from the community, we asked those who tried Kennadi’s Kookies to nominate us for Best of Pueblo. We made it to the top five and then we made it to the top three up,” Garcia said.
Top readers who voted in the Best of Pueblo dessert category voted Taffy’s their favorite and East Coast Pizza and Kennadi’s Kookies were named last. After all, who can resist those irresistible cookie treats like mild and hot Pueblo Green Chile, a hot cocoa cookie or a toast crunch?
“We will fight for the top spot next year,” Garcia said.
A family
The cookie makers involve the whole family in the business.
“We decided it would be fun to name the cookies after family members or childhood memories,” Garcia said.
“The Boys” is a Reeses peanut butter cup cookie that brothers Kennadi, Landon and Rowan Schamp love. The “Chocolate Chunk” is a large chocolate chunk named after the family’s two kittens.
“Poor Kids Cook,” a nod to Garcia’s grandfather. The cherry chip cookie reminds Garcia of the free cookies she and her siblings often get at the bakery during trips to King. Soopers they hoped to get more than one.
“He told us ‘You’re not poor kids, grandpa is going to buy you some more cookies,'” Garcia said.
Garcia’s girlfriend, Carrie Schamp, has become the “CEO of quality control and food testing,” he joked.
Each new batch of cookies is baked in a small batch of cookies that Schamp happily samples to provide feedback.
“I take my taste test seriously,” she says with a laugh, but she can’t name her favorite cookie.
“We got to come up with ‘The Girlfriend’ sample box full of different little cookies,” Garcia joked.
Schamp is not alone in his inability to choose a favorite. Kennati himself said it was impossible.
Customers seem to like the chocolate chip cookie and the cinnamon toast crunch cookie, Garcia said, but since the duo makes what is “not your typical cookie,” the flavors are including hot cocoa topped with toasted marshmallows and mint bark for Christmas; apple pie, allspice. and pumpkin flavors during the fall and Halloween cookies featuring the top three candy choices as voted by Facebook fans.
Garcia’s favorite is the Pueblo green chile cookie that features Musso Farms chiles.
“We do it from mild to very hot with some of their dynamite-status chiles. They’re really good,” Garcia said.
Kennadi is not particularly vocal about his business venture, and tells few students about it.
“Most of them don’t know,” he admits, but his best friend, Kali Andasola, helps with deliveries and likes to wear matching “Kennadi’s Kookies” T-shirts to school sometimes. .
For more information about Kennadi’s Kookies, visit the Facebook page or email [email protected]
Tracy Harmon’s top author is publishing business stories. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter at twitter.com/tracywumps.
