TheGrio’s 100: Nia Froome, teenager makes dough off vegan desserts

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This high school senior from Long Island, New York was motivated by her mom’s battle with breast cancer to make vegan food more accessible — and delicious. Last fall, she beat out stiff national competition from other business-minded teens to win the 2010 Oppenheimer Funds/NFTE Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge with her own homegrown enterprise, Mamma Nia’s Vegan Bakery, which specializes in cookies, cinnamon rolls and cupcakes — all made without eggs or milk.

Nia Froome is making history … by making dough off the recipes she’s been tweaking for years. When her mom adopted a vegan diet after being diagnosed with breast cancer over a decade ago, Froome took this healthy style of cooking one step further – and created a brand of baked goods that would become a tasty option for health-conscious customers who didn’t want to give up their favorite sweets. Her mom, now in remission from cancer, was the inspiration behind Nia’s decision to donate a portion of her $10,000 prize winnings to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

What’s next for Nia?

The fledgling baker is looking forward to expanding her line of delicacies – and to grow her online delivery client base nationally. Beyond her work in the kitchen, the teenager is looking forward to making the grade in college next year.

In her own words …

“Can you imagine a world without cookies or cakes or ice cream or eggs? … For vegans, it’s their every day life. Mama Nia’s Bakery solves this problem,” Froome told the panel of judges for the NTFE competition.

A little-known fact …

Roughly 1 percent of Americans described themselves as “vegan” in 2009, according to a report by the not-for-profit Vegetarian Resource Group, which also said about three times as many Americans call themselves vegetarians. In 1994, less than 1 percent of Americans were vegetarians according to an estimation by the same group.

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