Fresh out of the oven: Lexie’s Cookie Factory

Cedar Shoals sophomore Lexie Holliday has always had an affinity for the kitchen. Growing up helping her mother bake, it was no surprise that she found herself beginning a cookie business at the age of 15. 

“I’ve always loved baking. I started with my mom, helping her with gifts for people. Then around, like, sixth grade, I realized I actually wanted to make something out of it,” Holliday said.

Her opportunity to make something out of baking arose in the form of a seventh grade agriculture project in 2020.

“Why not do something you love for a project?” Holliday said. “For the project, I made cookies; or a bakery business. It was called Lexie’s Kindness Kitchen. I made all these different desserts, and people could buy them.”

From helping her figure out recipes to organizing her online sites, Holliday’s mother, Beth Holliday, has been helping her daughter with her business since the beginning. Although fully supporting her daughter, she did have a couple of worries. 

“Initially, I was worried it would take away from school. I know that she really values her school and wants to do well,” Beth Holliday said. “Creating businesses is a lot of work, but I also know that she is very capable, she is very mature, she’s very organized; and so I am confident that she will do great. ”

Holliday stopped running the Kindness Kitchen in her eighth grade year, 2021. Despite closing the business, her passion for baking didn’t die down. 

Beginning of her ninth grade year, Holliday was once again presented with an opportunity to combine her passion with business. One of her father’s co-workers, impressed by her prior works, reached out requesting sugar cookies for his wedding. Not only a few, but an entire amount of 150. Taking the order, Holliday had to prepare. 

“I usually take an order, assess what they want, then map out the ingredients. Figure out how much I already have, what I need. See if there’s any allergies or dietary restrictions, stuff like that. Then next time I go to the store, I’ll get prepared for it even if it’s a few months in advance,” Holliday said. “I’ll usually start making the stuff a week out.”

With the wedding upcoming in December, Holliday found herself struggling to balance both the baking and her studies. 

“I had to make cookies, icing, let the cookies chill, frost them. And it was right before winter break, when all the teachers had finals. So I was studying for finals, as well as making all the cookies. Not gonna lie, there were tears,” Holliday said.

Not only did she have the wedding order, but Holliday was also making and managing other orders. Even teachers were reaching out for business— her English teacher Madison Parrish being one of them. 

“At first it was just ‘Oh, that’s cool that my student is doing that.’ Once I saw how professional (the cookies) were, I started thinking like, ‘Oh, I should really think about purchasing from her in the future,’” Parrish said.

With Parrish’s wedding upcoming, it was the perfect time to place an order. Although making plans, in the end the order was unable to go through due to scheduling conflicts. 

“It didn’t quite link up, but my plan is to buy some cookies for my students in the next couple of weeks,” Parrish said. 

With studying and orders piling up, Holliday feels lucky to have friends to support her. Holliday’s friend Stella James has been with her since day one, constantly offering support. A fellow sophomore at Cedar Shoals, James is Holliday’s self proclaimed No. 1 fan. 

“I thought that was really cool; that teachers were reaching out about (ordering). She was getting recognition,” James said. “She’s always just been like the go-getter. If she wants something, she’s gonna get it.”

Making both small and big orders, time flew; and eventually, it was time to create an Instagram. Currently advertising through her father telling his UGA students, a different platform was also welcome.

Despite balancing the orders and her grades and coming out relatively unharmed, Holliday recognized sacrifices that were made. Some days, she had to give up on dinner with family to finish up an order; other days, barely having time outside of school to hang out with friends. 

“It takes sacrifices. You have to be thankful for the opportunities you get,” Holliday said.

As for advice for other student entrepreneurs like herself, Holliday says that there are three key things to remember when running a business; time, balance and stress.

“You’re gonna be stressed out. There’s no way to avoid it. Relationships, schoolwork; literally everything is stressful,” Holliday said. “Nothing you make is going to be perfect, despite how good it is. But you need to remember the reason why you started it in the first place. You obviously went into it for a reason, there’s something that you love to do. And so you need to keep focus on what you love to do, instead of focusing on ‘I’m not good at it’, or ‘what if I mess up’. You just have to look at the positives over the negatives and remember why you want to do it.”