A Prince Avenue Christian School (PACS) student is watching her “dough” rise after starting her own baking business.
 
For a little over a year Delaney Cook, a junior at PACS, decided to venture into the entrepreneurship realm and start selling her delicious bake goods when she received some positive feedback.
 
The idea for the business venture came after she gave away some of her delicious treats that she baked at home.
 
“My friends told me I needed to start selling them,” Cook said in a press release by PACS Marketing Assistant Amy Frierson.
 
Even though she feels her surname might not reflect the exact path she is taking, the high school junior might as well have been born with a wooden spoon in her hand.
 
According to an article in the Oconee Enterprise, Cook pitches and sells her baked goods at birthday parties, bridal luncheons and office parties.
 
“I like to meet all of my customers myself to give it a more personal touch,” Cook said. “I also created my website and social media pages. I do not have any employees, but sometimes my parents will help me if I have a lot to do.”
 
Like many other businesses, Cook launched a website, delaneysdelights.com, where potential customers will find menu items such as her homemade cookies, cupcakes and pies and place an online order.
 
On top managing of her flourishing business the young savvy entrepreneur assists her mother’s business, Activekidz, which helps children with their physical therapy needs.
 
“[My daughter] is learning about supply and demand at an early age, and that can only help her in life,” said Kendall Cook. “We are so proud.” 
 
At her school, the junior is a member of the varsity girls’ golf team, a school mentor and a member of the Beta Club, National Honors Society and Interact clubs. 
 
 
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Last week UGA’s Fight Against Youth Obesity organization hosted a “Food for All” panel discussion at the University of Georgia’s Zell B. Miller Learning Center.

As reported in The Red & Black, the event featured eight speakers from the Athens and Atlanta area who are involved in food education and distribution at different capacities.

The panelists included Athens-Clarke County employee Craig Page, AmeriCorps vista at Clarke Middle School Rosemary Gay, chef Jeremiah Lemons, FoodCorps representative Ashley Na, UGA peer nutrition educator Samantha DeHart, and Athens based Community Supported Agriculture managers Rachel Vaughn and Amanda Holmes.

They talked about nutrition, food distribution, and nutritional and agricultural education in Clarke County schools.

“My relationship with agriculture as a middle class white woman is different from the majority of kids that I work with," Gay said. "The reality in Clarke county is that there is a lot of poverty and racism and the food system is just a really big issue that is hard to navigate in middle schoolers."

According to a United States Census Bureau 2017 study, 35.5 percent of residents in Athens-Clarke County are living in poverty.

Local farms and organizations hope to address the problem of the lack of funding and resources to obtain healthy food in the area.

Collective Harvest, a collaboration of local family farms in Athens, provides sustainably grown vegetables and fruits to Athens-area communities.

“We have a program called the fresh food fund, which is a donation-based fund and these apply, and basically subsidize produce shares to people that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford them,” CSA manager Rachel Vaughn said.

In terms of nutritional knowledge, data from a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey showed that 59 percent of college students had food insecurities, or some concerns over accessing healthy food options.

Samantha DeHart, a peer nutrition educator at UGA, works with students who have similar concerns over healthy eating.

“College students don’t have a lot of money and they don’t have a lot of time," DeHart said. "We try to educate them and help them eat healthy foods on a budget and how to cook food. We have a nutrition kitchen here that students can come to for very inexpensive prices and learn how to try healthier options."

Page hopes the upcoming mayoral elections will result in increased food awareness.

Page also suggests multiple changes that could bridge the gap between cost and nutrition, such as setting up a farmers market at the Athens Multi-Modal Transportation Center, to lower stress of buying groceries for low-income residents.

“We need to have professionals from different areas coming together and looking at this complex web of how food interacts with our lives, our society, and our environment, so that we can say, 'OK, this is where we are, and this is where we need to go,'" Page said.
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The University of Georgia Terry College of Business department of management was recently ranked No. 8 business schools of 150 in the nation for research productivity in 2017.

The department was ranked second most productive for its faculty size, a press release from the business school’s website said.

As reported in The Red & Black, the Terry department of management also ranked No. 13 of 150 for the number of papers that were published within the last five years. The department was also considered third most productive when size was taken into account for this ranking.

“Publishing papers in the leading management journals directly speaks to the quality of research that our faculty are conducting,” said Robert Vandenberg, head of the department of management, in the press release.

According to the college’s department of management website, students can earn a bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree in management. Students also learn skills such as strategic management, organizational behavior and operations management.

The rankings were compiled by scholars from Texas A&M and UGA the same way for the last 15 years.

The respective departments are ranked based on articles published in eight different high-end management journals by department of management faculty from U.S. business schools.

​In the press release, Vandenberg said the “collegiality and support” between students and faculty within that department leads to “remarkable” outcomes.

“The result is an unparalleled level of scholarship that is of interest to academics and informs business practices,” he said.

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