as an added bonus I’m going to decorate
staged for you so here we go so I grew
up in the suburbs of Chicago – two
incredibly hard-working parents who
bought their first business in 1974 and
when I came around in 1977 the
entrepreneurial spirit was well alive in
our house when my sister came around in
1979 my parents took over the family
business of my grandfather which was the
expectation for my sister and I as we
got older and many Christmases of
sitting at dining-room tables doing
payroll taxes and family vacations of
bringing fax machines on the airplane
with us and my parents never traveling
together ever because they never could
there was always worried that something
would happen to them I I decided that I
was never interested in owning a small
business of my own so in 1995 I came to
ISU and I got my degree in elementary
education and I was happy in 2000 I got
my first job and district 87 where I’ve
been ever since and one day I was at
Elroy’s with the principal where I teach
and we were playing darts and we made a
bet the bet was if I won he was going to
take my class for two hours on a Friday
afternoon to make sure that I could get
all of my papers graded and my
newsletter made and all of those things
and so and if he won I had to bake for
him so I lost and I spent the entire
weekend baking these cookies for him
these cookies that I’m decorating for
you right now and I brought them to
school and I handed them to him and and
he gave them to the secretaries of the
school where I teach and if you know
anything about how an elementary school
in the United States works secretaries
and the janitorial staff make the
building run
those two secretaries shared my cookies
with secretaries and other buildings and
when that happened I started doing
cookies for orders and so this was 2001
I’ve got a reposition 2001 so during
this time when I was making cookies for
all the other secretaries I started
selling cookies on eBay which at the
time there were very few regulations
with eBay and and you could do things
like that so I sold cookies on eBay
started a small business called cookies
by kelly.com and I shipped cookies all
over the United States Alaska Hawaii and
coordinated with FedEx and making sure
that cookies weren’t melting and
everything was shipping and all of those
things and over four years at the last
point I had been doing about 250 dozen
cookies out of our house between
Christmas and Thanksgiving and Christmas
and at which point my husband said
perhaps we should look for something
else for your baking escapades so we had
some friends Melanie who was up here
just a little while ago
was owned artisan downtown Bloomington
and she said there’s this place called
pumper nickels that closes it to and you
could consider renting their kitchens so
we went and talked to them and we asked
I asked if we could rent their kitchen
and they said sure no problem
but we might be for sale so my husband
my mother and I all went on vacation and
the entire time we were there we talked
about what would happen if they were for
sale now remember I had no interest in
ever owning a small business ever so my
mother had long since retired and she
had lots of experience and she you know
she knew that I could do it working hard
and all of those things were things that
I was able to do so we came we came back
from vacation and we did a lot of
research I met with a small business
development center at ISU my mother sat
outside in front of the bakery which at
the time was pumpernickel for an entire
week and counted the number of people
who walked by and the number of
people who went in we decided when they
finally said that they were for sale
that we were going to actually buy the
location so that in October on October
31st of 2005 we decided to close on the
equipment and take over the lease and
and we closed for two weeks and we
remodeled and created menu items and did
all of the things that went along with
starting a business and I had very
little experience with restaurants and
decided to open on November 15th of 2005
and I took the first day off of the
first day I opened and I took the day
off of school and we opened the doors
and it was a horrible experience I had
practically no customers and I was
absolutely terrified that we had made a
huge mistake and this went on for quite
a while I would get up at 4 o’clock in
the morning and go to the bakery bake
all of the things single batch at a time
and two weeks in I rolled over to my
husband at 4:30 in the morning I said we
just made the biggest mistake of our
lives but he decided that he was going
to take things into his own hands so he
got himself onto a radio interview 5
o’clock in the morning and one of the
local radio stations and brought
cinnamon rolls with him and they ate
them on they ate them on camera or on on
the radio and when that happened
lots of people listened and when they
listened things started to change we we
got pretty busy and things picked up we
one of the newspapers came and did a
report for us and and two years later we
were super busy and everything was
really really good at this point my
husband decided to open another business
called Nvidia so we added to our Second
Life of being a business I continued to
teach throughout that entire time and we
got really involved in the community
from the very beginning I had been
involved in the downtown Bloomington
Association and
it was probably the best choice that we
ever made statistically for restaurants
five years in statistically eighty
percent of all small businesses
restaurants specifically closed when
that happened and we made that mark it
was a it was a true milestone for me and
again I kept my full-time job my husband
kept his full-time job and we kept going
and everything was was kind of going
along the way that we had expected we
fast forward to a really great staff
that we’ve been able to keep for a very
long time and at the nine year mark we
purchased a store called Graff Aaliyah’s
airy in also in downtown Bloomington and
my husband and I rebranded that and
renamed it red raccoon games which just
is about to celebrate its four-year
anniversary and just in July of 2017 I
purchased another star an icon in the
community called the decorators grocery
which is on Linden Street here in
Bloomington an icon that had been open
since 1977 and it was a store that was
ready to close because the owners had
had gotten older and were ready to close
and it was one of those things that I
was not interesting and allowing to
happen so in all of this in opening all
of these businesses in taking a business
from a household where I was never
interested in owning my business and
turning my passion into something that I
was interested in I’ve learned that the
community that we live in is the most
important part and we’ve been able to
use that community to make it a better
place and if you love the community you
live your community will love you back
thank you
staged for you so here we go so I grew
up in the suburbs of Chicago – two
incredibly hard-working parents who
bought their first business in 1974 and
when I came around in 1977 the
entrepreneurial spirit was well alive in
our house when my sister came around in
1979 my parents took over the family
business of my grandfather which was the
expectation for my sister and I as we
got older and many Christmases of
sitting at dining-room tables doing
payroll taxes and family vacations of
bringing fax machines on the airplane
with us and my parents never traveling
together ever because they never could
there was always worried that something
would happen to them I I decided that I
was never interested in owning a small
business of my own so in 1995 I came to
ISU and I got my degree in elementary
education and I was happy in 2000 I got
my first job and district 87 where I’ve
been ever since and one day I was at
Elroy’s with the principal where I teach
and we were playing darts and we made a
bet the bet was if I won he was going to
take my class for two hours on a Friday
afternoon to make sure that I could get
all of my papers graded and my
newsletter made and all of those things
and so and if he won I had to bake for
him so I lost and I spent the entire
weekend baking these cookies for him
these cookies that I’m decorating for
you right now and I brought them to
school and I handed them to him and and
he gave them to the secretaries of the
school where I teach and if you know
anything about how an elementary school
in the United States works secretaries
and the janitorial staff make the
building run
those two secretaries shared my cookies
with secretaries and other buildings and
when that happened I started doing
cookies for orders and so this was 2001
I’ve got a reposition 2001 so during
this time when I was making cookies for
all the other secretaries I started
selling cookies on eBay which at the
time there were very few regulations
with eBay and and you could do things
like that so I sold cookies on eBay
started a small business called cookies
by kelly.com and I shipped cookies all
over the United States Alaska Hawaii and
coordinated with FedEx and making sure
that cookies weren’t melting and
everything was shipping and all of those
things and over four years at the last
point I had been doing about 250 dozen
cookies out of our house between
Christmas and Thanksgiving and Christmas
and at which point my husband said
perhaps we should look for something
else for your baking escapades so we had
some friends Melanie who was up here
just a little while ago
was owned artisan downtown Bloomington
and she said there’s this place called
pumper nickels that closes it to and you
could consider renting their kitchens so
we went and talked to them and we asked
I asked if we could rent their kitchen
and they said sure no problem
but we might be for sale so my husband
my mother and I all went on vacation and
the entire time we were there we talked
about what would happen if they were for
sale now remember I had no interest in
ever owning a small business ever so my
mother had long since retired and she
had lots of experience and she you know
she knew that I could do it working hard
and all of those things were things that
I was able to do so we came we came back
from vacation and we did a lot of
research I met with a small business
development center at ISU my mother sat
outside in front of the bakery which at
the time was pumpernickel for an entire
week and counted the number of people
who walked by and the number of
people who went in we decided when they
finally said that they were for sale
that we were going to actually buy the
location so that in October on October
31st of 2005 we decided to close on the
equipment and take over the lease and
and we closed for two weeks and we
remodeled and created menu items and did
all of the things that went along with
starting a business and I had very
little experience with restaurants and
decided to open on November 15th of 2005
and I took the first day off of the
first day I opened and I took the day
off of school and we opened the doors
and it was a horrible experience I had
practically no customers and I was
absolutely terrified that we had made a
huge mistake and this went on for quite
a while I would get up at 4 o’clock in
the morning and go to the bakery bake
all of the things single batch at a time
and two weeks in I rolled over to my
husband at 4:30 in the morning I said we
just made the biggest mistake of our
lives but he decided that he was going
to take things into his own hands so he
got himself onto a radio interview 5
o’clock in the morning and one of the
local radio stations and brought
cinnamon rolls with him and they ate
them on they ate them on camera or on on
the radio and when that happened
lots of people listened and when they
listened things started to change we we
got pretty busy and things picked up we
one of the newspapers came and did a
report for us and and two years later we
were super busy and everything was
really really good at this point my
husband decided to open another business
called Nvidia so we added to our Second
Life of being a business I continued to
teach throughout that entire time and we
got really involved in the community
from the very beginning I had been
involved in the downtown Bloomington
Association and
it was probably the best choice that we
ever made statistically for restaurants
five years in statistically eighty
percent of all small businesses
restaurants specifically closed when
that happened and we made that mark it
was a it was a true milestone for me and
again I kept my full-time job my husband
kept his full-time job and we kept going
and everything was was kind of going
along the way that we had expected we
fast forward to a really great staff
that we’ve been able to keep for a very
long time and at the nine year mark we
purchased a store called Graff Aaliyah’s
airy in also in downtown Bloomington and
my husband and I rebranded that and
renamed it red raccoon games which just
is about to celebrate its four-year
anniversary and just in July of 2017 I
purchased another star an icon in the
community called the decorators grocery
which is on Linden Street here in
Bloomington an icon that had been open
since 1977 and it was a store that was
ready to close because the owners had
had gotten older and were ready to close
and it was one of those things that I
was not interesting and allowing to
happen so in all of this in opening all
of these businesses in taking a business
from a household where I was never
interested in owning my business and
turning my passion into something that I
was interested in I’ve learned that the
community that we live in is the most
important part and we’ve been able to
use that community to make it a better
place and if you love the community you
live your community will love you back
thank you
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