{"id":13173,"date":"2023-11-10T08:24:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T13:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=13173"},"modified":"2023-11-10T09:48:39","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T14:48:39","slug":"creating-a-future-from-scratch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2023\/11\/10\/creating-a-future-from-scratch\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating a Future, from Scratch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After his son with autism began to age out of the educational system, Alvin Green ’89 started a cookie company. His aim: to secure a better future for his son.<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Illustration by Bruce Morser \u201976<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

What happens when the bus stops coming? It\u2019s a phrase that parents of children with special needs often use, referring to the time around age 22, when a person ages out of the American educational system. Parents must grapple with decisions about continuing care for their adult children: Will they hire a live-in nurse? Or quit their jobs to provide care themselves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also have to think about the inevitable circumstance of how their child will be taken care of once they no longer can provide for them \u2014 through aging diseases like dementia or their own eventual death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When their child began to age out of school, marketing executive Angela Ferguson suggested to her husband, Alvin Green \u201989, that they start a business to build generational wealth for their son, Aiden, who lives with autism. \u201cWhy don’t you just combine your two loves?\u201d she suggested back in 2022. \u201cYour love for baking \u2014 especially cookies \u2014 and Aiden.\u201d Al\u2019s Cookie Mixx, an online company specializing in build-your-own cookies that employs people with special needs, was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The couple were no strangers to the small- business world: Green, a Colgate economics major, worked in transportation at a Fortune 500 company for a decade before leaving New York City, making a stop in Savannah, Ga., and finally settling in his wife\u2019s hometown of Chicago. There, the couple started a catering company built on Green\u2019s self-taught cooking skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Aiden was diagnosed with autism in 2005, Green shifted to private chef work so he could have more flexibility to spend time with Aiden. He soon became Aiden\u2019s primary caregiver, shuttling him to therapy appointments and handling insurance claims. As Aiden began to age out of school, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Green realized he needed to shift his career focus to create a lasting impact on Aiden\u2019s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Green has always been interested in making the perfect cookie. Living in Spanish House at Colgate with classmates, \u201cwe used to make warm cookies and run them all over campus\u201d for fundraisers, he remembers. \u201cWe thought about doing something with a business model back then, but life takes over, and we went different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Green transferred that passion for baking, combined with his culinary know-how, into Al\u2019s Cookie Mixx. \u201cEveryone likes something different in their cookies,\u201d Green notes. \u201cOther people tell you what they put in your cookies, we let you tell us what to put in your cookies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the website, customers can choose a base flavor (chocolate, vanilla, or oatmeal) and any number of mix-ins (chocolate chips, fruit, candy, etc.) to create the perfect- for-them premade cookie. The company also offers flavors of the month, like April\u2019s lemon blueberry cookie in honor of Autism Awareness Month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Forbes, the unemployment rate for people with autism is roughly 85%. Aside from creating a future fund for Aiden, Green also set out to create a place for other people with special needs to spend their time. \u201cThere\u2019s never enough opportunities for adults with autism or any special needs for employment, especially when you live in urban areas and especially [for people] of color,\u201d Green says. The company recently moved into a permanent commercial kitchen, and Green is hiring people with special needs to do jobs like packing orders, sticking labels, and helping with pop-up events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomebody needs to do it, might as well be us,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After his son with autism began to age out of the educational system, Alvin Green ’89 started a cookie company. His aim: to secure a better future for his son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1222,"featured_media":13772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[354,482,1781,824,1780,553,1782,277,53,61,1779,1778],"coauthors":[168],"class_list":["post-13173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-alumni","tag-autism","tag-caregiving","tag-catering","tag-cooking","tag-covid-19","tag-culinary","tag-economics","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-food","tag-generational-wealth","tag-special-needs"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-3qt","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/11\/Colgate-Alvin-Son-9-23-flat.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13173"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13757,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13173\/revisions\/13757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13173"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}