ENTREPRENEURS
43
Neet ' s Sweets , Charlotte , North Carolina
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Antonia Childs wears many hats and at thirty-one years old , goes by many different titles : daughter , sister , auntie , baker , entrepreneur , executive director , survivor , and advocate . But the name that represents her the most is ' Neet ', a childhood nickname given to her by her mother while growing up in Buffalo , New York .
Antonia shares with DOAK™ Magazine , " The childhood name stuck with me because it reminds me of the two most important women in my life , one being my mother , who worked long days working in a parts plant , and my Aunt Koona , who use to say , Neet hand me this or hand me that , when she was baking in the kitchen . When I decided to introduce myself to the world , I chose to share that part of me as a way of paying homage to my two heroes ."
Neet ' s Sweets
The vision for Neet ' s Sweets did not come from the ' typical ' startup story of what business should be . What people call Neet ' s Sweets today was never part of Antonia ' s original plan . Her personal story attached to the business is really ' Cakes and Pastries Just for You ', when in 2007 , she went downtown in Charlotte , North Carolina to register her business . Her intent was to finance her way out of a destructive lifestyle that consumed most of her late teens as well as her early twenties . She wanted to get as far as possible from what is called human sex trafficking today . Antonia shares , " When I first started selling cakes and making deliveries around Charlotte , I would sometimes run into men who didn ' t embrace the new me . They would always try to discourage me by saying things like , ' Who would want to buy cupcakes from you ?' Unfortunately , this was one of the nicer comments ."
Starting the business was far from easy for Antonia , but baking was something she was good at and she felt good doing it , and most of all it made her Aunt Koona proud . So proud , she
ISSUE 04 | WINTER 2017