ITHACA, NY (CortacaToday) — What started out of necessity grew into a social enterprise for Olivia (Via) Carpenter. When she moved to Ithaca for college, selling cookies helped her get by financially. Now her recipe has helped her to build a business that is loved in the Ithaca community and offering help to students that started out similarly to Via.

The mission of Via’s Cookies is to provide the community with treats that can be enjoyed by people with and without food restrictions, her delicious arsenal including vegan and gluten-free options.

Carpenter started her business four years ago. She attended Ithaca College as a part of the MLK Scholar program and studied business administration and entrepreneurship, graduating with her bachelor’s in 2022. Her sister persuaded her into entering the business competition: Ithaca College Startup Business Pitch Demo Day. She won the competition, helping her to successfully launch Via’s Cookies.

What are the advantages to starting a business in Ithaca?

“Ithaca is perfect for starting a business,” Carpenter said, “I’m mission based. And I’m a Black woman. I’m a part of the LGBTQ community.” The people in the community have been very receptive to her product and continuously show support for small business. All the intersections of her identity never put her at a disadvantage like it may have in other locations in New York or in other parts of the country—like where she grew up: “If I were to start in my hometown in Ohio, I wouldn’t … period. I wouldn’t have put a Pride flag on the logo because that would have faced a lot of backlash … Ithaca provided such a strong platform for me to build from … I’m just constantly feeling the love of people around me. I think it’s the most accepting community I’ve ever been in.”

Distinct and Mission-Based

“My business philosophy more centers around building something that works for you,” she said, and is very guided to honor her heart’s desires rather than only making calculated decisions to reach a fiscal goal, “I’ve been working with the President of the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation, and he keeps telling me we did things the way we wanted to, [and] we did things according to our heart.” Her business is also meant to “work for”—sustain and support community members—that were in similar situations to her growing up as a low-income POC, “There should be some way that I can figure out how to even the playing field and be able to give without dipping into any sort of negative myself … I shouldn’t hurt myself at the expense of giving to other people.” Her current strategy: she takes 5 percent of the business’s proceeds each month and donates it to students: “I don’t want this to be difficult for people … I literally just want to send them money,” Carpenter said.  She has an ongoing list of people that she pulls from each month and shares stories around the donations and what they help each student achieve on her site here. If you know of a student, that you feel is in need, you can fill out the form on her site on their behalf, “nominating” them for a donation, or send them the form to complete themselves.

Why Via’s Cookies and not “Olivia’s Cookies?”

“People love to come up with nicknames for the name Olivia,” Carpenter said. Her friend Desiree helped her to pick out “Via” as opposed to common nickname, “Liv.” The revelation didn’t dawn on her until well into running her business that the word “via,” means “by way of,” or refers to a medium of communication for spreading a message. Her business was spreading a message by way of cookies—via cookies!

Keynote Speaker and Working with Ben and Jerry’s President

Perhaps one of the most exciting turns in her journey as a business owner was meeting Jeff Furman, President of the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation at an event hosted by the Southside Community Center. “They had my cookies for the event …. I met Jeff, and he was like ‘I like your style.'”

From there the two planned to meet and discuss running a business with a social mission behind it. Furman helped Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry’s in 1978 with their business plan for their first ice cream parlor in Burlington, Vermont. He played a large part in expanding the business and maintaining its socially responsible practices as it grew—much like Via’s philosophy to do business “with heart.”

From their meetings the two decided to start a speaking series, “Can business have heart?” After completing some of their talks for Speaker Ideas, a global network, Furman was asked to return to his alum mater to speak at NYU Law School’s 2024 Annual Conference on Legal Issues in Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing. He agreed, but on one condition, that Via Carpenter would join him. And so, she did. She walked away from that engagement with a pro bono lawyer and several business connections: “I am now moving into this space where I’m going to be around people who are also about saving the world and social enterprise.”

Where to Find Via’s Cookies

One of the first business connections was with store owner Ramsey Brous of Ithaca Bakery and College Town Bagels. Getting her cookies into his stores was a huge leap forward in getting her product known to the community. Today her cookies are sold all over the county including in: The Canopy Hilton’s The Strand Cafe, Mimi’s Attic, Greenstar, Anabel’s Grocery, Sweet Melissa’s and The Downstairs (below Watershed). Carpenter also brings her delicious treats to events in Ithaca and beyond. She sold her cookies at Pride Fest in Dewitt Park. Her cookies have even made it as far as Boston, Massachusetts, where they are sold at More than Words bookstore and North Carolina at Firestorm Books. She frequently collaborates with local business owners. Last summer Sweet Melissa’s Ice Cream and Via’s Cookies offered ice cream cookie sandwiches at the ice cream shop next to Short Stop Deli. And she frequently has her cookies catered for events like the Ithaca Gallery Night hosted by the Community Arts Partnership the first Friday of every month.

More about Via 

• One of Carpenter’s favorite places in Ithaca is Buffalo Street Books. She will actually be publishing a book through Microcosm Publishing and the bookstore will host her launch (date TBD).

• She loves swimming in waterfalls and underneath the bridge before First Dam.

• Carpenter loves writing and is working on a romance novel.

• She doesn’t endorse “hustle culture,” the idea that you should work yourself to the bone in order to be successful. Carpenter feels that when you take care of your mental health that the solutions you need in order to run a business are easier to come by. One way she takes care of herself is having fun with her exercise through activities like long-boarding and pole dancing.

• She is an artist! And she has painted murals all over town, like the one behind Ooy’s Deli.

You can find Via’s Cookies on Instagram. Mark your calendar for her crowd funding party at Personal Best Brewing August 3, at 4 p.m.