Business

Black Business Spotlight: Junita’s Jar

MINNESOTA SPOKESMAN-RECORDER — Junita Flowers has been in the cookie business for the past 10 years. She first launched her successful Favorable Treats in 2009, but an abusive marriage and divorce left her picking up the pieces. Instead of giving up, she relaunched with a purpose.

Published

5 years ago

July 16, 2019

Stephenetta isis Harmon

By Stephenetta (isis) Harmon

Junita Flowers has been in the cookie business for the past 10 years. She first launched her successful Favorable Treats in 2009, but an abusive marriage and divorce left her picking up the pieces. Instead of giving up, she relaunched with a purpose.

Her new cookie imprint, Junita’s Jar, not only offers up sweet treats but also provides healing for women affected by relationship violence and prevention for others. Since launching last summer, she’s focused on expanding her reach and using the power of food to connect communities.

The MSR caught up with the cookie entrepreneur to talk about her mission-driven company and her plans to change the world, one cookie at a time.

MSR: So can you tell me a little bit about Junita’s Jar?

Junita Flowers: Our mission is to bake hope into every cookie purchased. We have three different flavors — triple chocolate chip, oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip, and oatmeal raisin.

We are specifically focused on college students, because the 18 to 24 demographic is the largest impacted by relationship violence. And college students can impact change in our culture — sometimes faster than any other generation — because they’re willing to go against the odds and try things and support each other on a different level.

Ultimately, our goal is to reduce victim-shaming, create allies amongst peers, and then inspire students to take action beyond what we call our “Cookies and Conversation” event.

MSR: What does a Cookies & Conversation event look like?

JF: [Hosts] bring their friends together, they book the space. I bring in a panel of experts, I host the conversation, I bring in the cookies. I have someone that represents mental health talking about trauma, the impact of trauma on the brain, managing stress, and self-care. I have a medical professional [who] talks about what you can expect if you ever find yourself in a situation and what you can expect from the medical community.

And then I have a survivor who is no longer in trauma. If you go volunteer at a shelter, you’re meeting women in trauma and you sometimes don’t relate to them. But if you see a woman that’s now on the other side, you can kind of relate to her, like, “You had a regular relationship like I thought I had.”

We’re really trying to normalize, not so you can be okay with it but to let women know it can happen to any of us. One in four women [are victims of relationship violence]; that’s not just a stat, that’s real.

MSR: What inspired you?
JF: I am a survivor of domestic violence. It’s not a topic that I was necessarily passionate about, but I knew I was passionate about changing women’s lives and I didn’t want anyone to feel the way that I did. I knew that I wanted to create something different, something hope-filled. I didn’t want women to feel the way I did.

MSR: How does all this tie into cookies?

JF: Cooking was my emotional escape. During the craziness of the abusive relationship, I went back to what I knew and what brought me joy as a child — being in the kitchen. I am one of eight [children], and my grandmother used to come over every Wednesday to help my mom prepare meals, so we spent a lot of time in the kitchen making everything from scratch.

It was just the bonding that happened in the kitchen. And cookies are the thing that I decided to do. What fed me in the craziness is what now is going to feed my family and others — literally and figuratively.

Even though we sell cookies, I like to think that we’re a story-sharing platform. We use the cookies as an opportunity to spark conversation.

MSR: What’s next?

JF: I have my next C&C scheduled for August with a student nurses association, and then I have some conversations that I’m super excited about that are coming up that I’m hoping will lead me to my ultimate goal. I want every student-athlete that enters a college campus to go through our conversation series as a part of their orientation — sort of an education and prevention mechanism around sexual and domestic violence. So I’d like to partner with the NCAA.

MSR: Any other goals?

JF: Our tagline is “hope munches on,” so I would like to go around the world speaking and inspiring women — not just about relationship violence, but inspiring women to push beyond boundaries and pursue their purpose, because that’s an area where women tend to struggle the most. You could be 30 or 60 and still struggle with that whole thing around purpose.

MSR: Do you have any plans for retail?
JF: That’s sort of the next step as we build awareness and build our customer base. We’re at the University of Minnesota, in about five stores and the four bookstores on campus, and we’re in a store on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul. Once people are more aware of who Junita’s Jar is, we can have better success once we get on the retail shelves.

MSR: What advice would you give to someone who was looking to start a commercial business combining the social enterprise aspect?

JF: I think it all boils down to your why — why are you in business? How do you know if this is for you, if this is what you want to do? Think if you are really tapping into your “why.” You should dream about your why, research your why, plan your why, execute that why, celebrate that why, and then repeat it.

For more info, visit Junita’s Jar at junitasjar.com.

This article originally appeared in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.

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Activism

‘Jim Crow Was and Remains Real in Alameda County (and) It Is What We Are Challenging and Trying to Fix Every Day,’ Says D.A. Pamela Price

“The legacy of Jim Crow is not just a legacy in Alameda County. It’s real. It is what is happening and how (the system is) operating, and that is what we are challenging and trying to fix every day,” said D.A. Price, speaking to the Oakland Post by telephone for over an hour last Saturday. “Racial disparities in this county have never been effectively eliminated, and we are applying and training our lawyers on the (state’s) Racial Justice Act, and we’re implementing it in Alameda County every day,” she said.

Published

34 mins ago

November 2, 2024

Oakland Post

Exclusive interview with County D.A. Price days before recall election. Photo by Ken Epstein.

By Ken Epstein

Part One

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price gave an exclusive in-depth interview, speaking with the Oakland Post about the continuing legacy of Jim Crow injustice that she is working to overturn and her major achievements, including:

restoring and expanding services for victims of crime,
finding funding for an alternative to incarceration and/or prosecution for substance use and mental health-related misdemeanors and
aggressively prosecuting corporations for toxic pollution and consumer violations.

“Racial disparities in this county have never been effectively eliminated, and we are applying and training our lawyers on the (state’s) Racial Justice Act, and we’re implementing it in Alameda County every day,” she said.

Passed by the State Legislature, this law “is an extremely helpful tool for us to address the racial disparities that continue to exist in our system,” she said.

(The law addresses) “the racial disparities that we find in our juvenile justice system, where 86% of all felony juvenile arrests in the county are Black or Brown children.

“We trained the entire workforce on the Racial Justice Act. We are creating a data system that will allow us to look at the trends and to clearly identify where racism has infected the process. We know that where law enforcement is still engaging in racial profiling and unfair targeting and arresting, we’re trying to make sure we’re catching that.”

Many people do not know much about the magnitude of Alameda County District Attorney’s job. Her office is a sprawling organization with 10 offices serving 1.6 million people living in 14 cities and six unincorporated areas, with a budget this year of about $104 million.

Asked about her major achievements since she took office last year, she is especially proud of the expanded and renewed victims’ services division in the DA’s Office, she said.

“We have expanded and reorganized the entire claims division so that we are now expediting as much as possible the benefits that victims are entitled to. Under my predecessor, they were having to wait anywhere, sometimes as long as a year, to 400 days to get benefits.

“Claims had been denied that should not have been denied. So, we’re helping people file appeals on claims that were denied under her tenure,” D.A. Price said.

“Under my predecessor, (the victims’ service office) was staffed by people who were not trained to provide trauma-informed services to victims, and yet they were the only people that the victims were in contact with. We immediately stopped that practice,” she continued.

“We had to expand the advocate workforce to include people who speak Hmong, the indigenous language of so many people in this county who are victims of crime.”

More African Americans advocates were hired because they represent the largest percentage of crime victims and we hired a transgender advocate and advocates who speak Cantonese and Mandarin. “The predominantly Chinese American community in Oakland was not being served by advocates who speak the language,” said D Price

“We reduced the lag time from the delivery of benefits to victims from 300 to 400 days down to less than 60 days.”

She increased victim advocacy by 38%, providing critical support to over 22,500 victims, a key component of community safety.

Other major achievements:

She recently filed 12 felony charges against a man accused of multiple armed robberies, demonstrating her seriousness about prosecuting violent crimes
In October, a jury delivered a guilty verdict in the double murder trial of former Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy Devin Williams, showing DA Price’s commitment to holding law enforcement accountable.
She recently charged a man and woman in unincorporated San Leandro with murder, felony unlawful firearm activity, and felony carrying a loaded firearm in public.
A. Price’s office was awarded a $6 million grant by the state for its CARES Navigation Center diversion program. In partnership with the UnCuffed Project at a Seventh Day Adventist Church in Oakland, the program provides resources and referrals for services to residents as an alternative to incarceration and/or prosecution for substance use and mental health-related misdemeanors.

“This is the largest grant investment in the history of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office,” said D.A. Price.

She explained that the program now has a mobile unit. “We have washers and dryers. We have a living room. We have a television. It’s a place where people can decompress, get themselves stabilized,” she said.

The project has “the ability to refer people to housing, to more long-term mental health services, to social services, and to assist them in other ways.”

Her office joined in a $49 million statewide settlement with Kaiser Health Plan and Hospitals, resolving allegations that the healthcare provider unlawfully disposed of hazardous waste, medical waste, and protected health information. The settlement, which involved the state and a half dozen counties, resulted in Alameda County receiving $7 million for its residents.
DA Price charged a former trucking company employee for embezzling over $4.3 million, showing her commitment to tackling white-collar crime.
For the first time, Alameda County won a criminal grand jury indictment of a major corporation with two corporate officers that have been sources of pollution. “They had a record of settlements and pollution in this community, and they had a fire that constituted a grave danger,” she said.

Attorney Walter Riley contributed to this article.

See Part Two

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Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

Published

23 hours ago

November 1, 2024

Oakland Post

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Business

Chevron Reports Progress in Flaring, Emissions at Community Town Hall

At the first in a series of community town halls on Oct. 16, Chevron Richmond reported a reduction in year-over-year flaring incidents, both in number and duration, and detailed new technologies and processes that will further drive down emissions and heighten community awareness about operations. Chevron employees also answered questions from the community and listened to concerns at the town hall, which was hosted by Ceres Policy Research and held at CoBiz in downtown Richmond.

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

Community member Kathleen Sullivan speaks at the Chevron town hall. Photo courtesy Richmond Standard.

By Mike Aldax

The Richmond Standard

Chevron employees also answered questions from the community and listened to concerns at the town hall, which was hosted by Ceres Policy Research and held at CoBiz in downtown Richmond.

Similar town halls will be held twice per year over the next five years as part of a settlement agreement with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD).

The goal is to increase transparency about flaring and increase opportunities for the community to get answers to their questions about potential impacts to the community.

A key output is the creation of a Community Action Plan, or CAP. The CAP aims to create a two-way dialogue between Chevron and neighbors around flaring and environmental compliance.

“Chevron’s focus in this process is one of learning and engagement,” said Brian Hubinger, public affairs manager at Chevron Richmond. “We felt the most efficient way was to bring together a broad selection of community members rather than just think about what it would take to comply with the settlement agreement.”

The first town hall drew a few dozen members of the community, including Chevron employees, representatives of fence-line neighborhoods and members of local environmental organizations.

During the event, Chevron employees reported that 19 BAAQMD-reportable flaring incidents occurred at the refinery from October 2022 to September 2023 with a total duration of 270 hours. During the same period this year, 18 flaring incidents occurred with a total duration of 159 hours, marking a 41% decrease in duration.

Further gains are expected with the implementation of Flare IQ, set to be installed this year and next on all of the refinery’s flaring systems. Flare IQ is described as a supercomputer with an algorithm that gathers data from operations and enables employees to address potential issues before they occur.

Chevron also reported a 40% decrease in particulate matter emissions since the completion of the refinery modernization project in 2018.

In addition, flare gas volume related to Chevron’s new hydrogen plant project, built as part of the modernization project, decreased by 85% since 2019. The hydrogen plant has also reportedly made the refinery 20% more efficient.

“We’re really proud about that,” said Kris Battleson, manager of health, safety and environment at Chevon Richmond.

Neighborhood council leaders joined the president of the local NAACP in lauding the effort toward transparency and accountability. Among them was Vernon Whitmore, president of the Sante Fe Neighborhood Council and member of the 15-person CAP committee.

“The way we were able to talk openly and freely with Chevron – honestly, bluntly and frankly – while developing this program was very good,” Whitmore said. “And it was something that was well-needed at this time.”

Still, residents are skeptical, including Kathleen Sullivan, a longtime community advocate who also serves on the CAP committee. But she added, “you can’t complain about something and not be involved in the solution.”