Olivia Carpenter ‘22 started her undergraduate journey at Ithaca College studying journalism –– now she is the founder of a popular cookie company that brings opportunity to people of color and other marginalized groups. During the pandemic, she revisited her childhood passion for baking, and Via’s Cookies was born. Her background as a hurdle track star and challenges as a queer black woman have helped her build resistance and a community based mentality that is seen in all her work and the impact it provides for those around her.
I first met Via on a retreat organized by the BIPOC Unity Center (formerly Center for IDEAS ), and recently experienced the grace of her support when I faced financial struggles that threatened my ability to continue my education. I had the privilege of sitting down and having a conversation with her as part of our chapter’s campaign to amplify the voices of college alumni. Here is an excerpt of that conversation.
Mariana Contreras: You started making cookies at 14. Do you ever imagine that it would grow into the business that it is today?
Olivia Carpenter: No, I didn’t imagine that I would be here today. Honestly, there were a million different life paths that I had planned for myself, like I thought I was going to be a lawyer. I thought I was going to be a journalist when I switched from journalism to business. … I went to New York City. I did an internship with a fashion house where I modeled … and I was mistreated over and over, and I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t like this.’ So junior year of college, when COVID hit, and … I’m just sitting in my apartment. It was the cookie recipe that came back to me, and I thought, ‘All right, let me just make some cookies.’ It’s really interesting to look back at my childhood self who dreamed of being a baker when I was older, and then: kind of got, I guess taken off track by just the ways of the world and the need to survive and to have money and all of these things and then somehow end right back up on this this. I want to make sweet things and also put a social justice component into what I [do.] It was checking these other boxes that I desired. I wanted to be a lawyer because I wanted to serve justice, … and here I am donating to help students get a good education … Yeah, I never imagined that I would be here making cookies for change.
MC: Was there a defining moment in your journey that made you realize you were on the right path?
OC: Honestly, no. It’s just a feeling when I follow my heart and do things that bring me joy –– it seems like everything is okay. When I continued to follow that path, more opportunities fell into my lap.
MC: You’ve mentioned that track has taught you a lot about life. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve taken from sports into business?
OC: I was a hurdler in high school. I was very naturally gifted at it, but natural talent won’t get you very far, so you have to train. I trained really hard because I believed that getting a track scholarship would be my ticket to college, as I knew I wouldn’t be able to pay tuition due to my family’s low income. I went on a very long, tumultuous journey with hurdles. I would train more than everyone else on the track team. I would go to the gym early, and… I would do demonstrations for the football players, just like I was in there, and on the track, I was always winning. Throughout my track career, I would get to a good place. I would make it all the way to the state finals, and then I would trip in the race, face-plant, and have to scrape myself up to finish it. Finally, in my senior year of high school, I found a track team that would always go to Nationals. I found the best of the best, and I asked if I could train with them. I did. That year, I was the state champion … and when I was standing up on that podium, I was actually thinking to myself, ‘I think this is the last race I would ever like to run.’ It had been such a stressful journey jumping these literal and figurative hurdles just throughout my life, and I knew that continuing into the rest of my life would be a hurdles race. I’ve started just seeing things as a series of hurdles. I trip up, I land hard on the track, and I get up, and I finish the race … It’s a good analogy for life. As long as you can get back up and keep going, you cannot be stopped.
MC: Talking about hurdles and obstacles, what is the most challenging obstacle that you’ve had to overcome to this day? And how do you push through it?
OC: There are many different obstacles, and they’re all in different parts of my life, and many of them are still ongoing. Money is a huge obstacle in most of our lives. That’s one that I’ve been very actively working on. [I’ve] been changing my mindset about money, changing the way I think about it, changing the way I look at it, like seeing it as a tool rather than this thing that I have to grind away for. Seeing it as something that is very abundant. There’s a lot of money in the world, and it shouldn’t be hard to get it. When I can get that money, I [will] redistribute it. It’ll only be easier for all of us to have it. More than anything, it is actually anxiety … Throughout my entire life, I’ve been a very anxious person, which is a surprise for a lot of people –– because I get up on stages, I speak in front of hundreds of people, I walk into places like I own the room, I always come with this undeniable confidence … The hurdle race that I’m continuously running is a race with my own mind, my own mindset on life, and with the intersections of who I am as a person. It makes it very difficult to get through all of the anxiety, because the world is constantly attacking us. How do I stand in my power? How do I be confident? How do I feel peace and be at ease in this world, and not constantly feel like I’m under attack when the truth is, I am under attack. That has been the most challenging obstacle to clear, and I know that will be a hurdle race. I will be running hurdles for the rest of my life. I would just like overtime to make the hurdles grow smaller and smaller, to the point where maybe it’s not a race anymore. Maybe I’m just taking a nice jog around the track.
MC: If you had to describe Via’s Cookies in 3 words, what would they be? And why?
OC: Radical and the future. I truly believe Via’s Cookies is the future. I believe that once the Empire falls under its own contradictions, we will turn to a society based on helping one another, giving to each other, and sharing resources –– joy, love, all the good [things]. What is life for, if not to feel joy, and to enjoy this existence, to be happy, and to love people. The whole mission of Via’s cookies is to spread joy and make life easier and [bring education to] students of color who have faced barriers. This is a radical idea because it just defies the laws of capitalism. It’s me saying I’m going to take this money and give it away for free. No strings attached … If I can live a fulfilling life, it’s okay not to be rich … Essentially, I founded a business that the more successful I am, the more money I [can] give to other people, and I think that’s beautiful.
MC: I like how you described it as the future, because my next question was about the future of Via’s Cookies––are there any big dreams or goals that you have on the horizon?
OC: There are a few specific things that I want to make happen, and one of them is to have a piece of land. I want to have an area where we have our own kitchen, and maybe we can even like house people … and we have farmland, and we produce our own vegetables and fruits, and we have chickens, so we have our own eggs for the cookies, and we host community events. I see that very clearly. I’d like to have that. I would also like my company to grow to a point where I have hundreds of people working for Via’s Cookies, and [we can] provide these jobs for people who typically have a tougher time getting or staying employed due to various barriers. Generally I would like it to be a very community-oriented, community-based operation where the more we succeed, the more everyone else succeeds.
MC: What keeps you excited about what you do every day?
OC: Definitely people. The more people I talk to, the more places I go, and the more honest I am with myself and my community, the more excitement I seem to [encounter]. When they’re excited, I’m excited. Life becomes exciting when you’re around good people doing good things … Things are bad right now, but we get to change that.