15-Year Old Opens Black-Owned Cupcake Shop During Pandemic

Meet Layla Wallace, a 15-year old teen baker and entrepreneur from Michigan, who is making boss moves with the launch of her new cupcake shop called Layla's Cool Pops. Her storefront is located in downtown Kalamazoo and is the result of what started years ago as an economics project in her 4th-grade class.

In 2015, Layla started baking delicious sweet treats such as cupcakes, brownies, cookies, cake pops, and more. She has been specializing in special orders and catering events. Now, despite the pandemic, she pushed through with the opening of her first storefront, making sure preventive measures are in place.

"I think that some people think that my work ethic would be different because I'm younger, so I have to prove them wrong by working really hard," Layla said in a statement. "I still get scared of talking with people, so I'm warming up to talking with people and I still do school so it's kinda hard."

Moreover, through Layla's Cool Pops, she aims to support her Sweets4Homeless initiative, a non-profit which purchases homes for homeless families and provide financial support to other community organizations that help eliminate homelessness.

For more information about Layla's Cool Pops, visit LaylasCoolPops.com

This New Fund Was Created To Help Black Entrepreneurs

A small business lending program has been launched to help African American and minority businesses create jobs and build community wealth. With a focus on bringing capital to underserved groups, the National Urban League’s Urban Empowerment Fund, Morgan Stanley, National Development Council, and Cuyahoga County have come together to offer the Capital Access Fund of Greater Cleveland (CAF).

CAF is a three-year program that provides minority business owners access to capital, offering 50 loans totaling $8 million, as well as pre- and post-loan counseling, to ensure the success of those small business borrowers. With a goal of creating or maintaining a minimum of 300 jobs within those three years, CAF already has completed eight loans, totaling $1.4 million and helping to create or maintain 70 local jobs.

“The level of interest we already have confirms what we already knew—there is a gap in the access to capital for minority businesses, and we should not gloss over that,” said Marc H. M.

Read more: This New Fund Was Created To Help Black Entrepreneurs